


Warm Bodies

by tea_petty



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Cannibalism, F/M, Investigations, Organ Theft, Organized Crime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:21:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23979637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tea_petty/pseuds/tea_petty
Summary: Kellar and Nick's pursuit of Les Chacals continues.
Relationships: Female Sole Survivor/Nick Valentine
Comments: 1
Kudos: 11





	Warm Bodies

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to my Tumblr tea-petty for memepipboy featuring their Sole Survivor. 
> 
> Sequel to "Disappearance at the Third Rail"

The scrabbling footsteps of someone running past the Agency startled Kellar from the almost eerily quiet half-circle she, Nick, and Ellie stood in. It was probably just a couple of Diamond City kids. Probably. The sliver of doubt that always hung at the back of one’s mind, like the certainty that there were no monsters under their bed, or the probability that they most likely were not being watched, seemed to have swelled in the past few days.

After the incident at The Third Rail, Kellar didn’t know what she was sure of anymore.

She could still remember that night when they’d retreated to their room at the Hotel Rexford, their finery creased and peppered with dirt and grime. The hem of Kellar’s dress had torn, rendering the sensual slit up the side less than classy by association. Kellar had trudged straight to the bed – the room only had one, though any embarrassment was spared by the fact that Nick didn’t need to sleep. She’d fallen onto it, the mattress bouncing her slightly on impact. Despite the easy sit, her muscles still seemed to groan and ache in protest – a protest of existence really. Pain felt like the new default.

Nick looked thoughtful as he trudged in behind her. 

The fatigue of the day didn’t bow his body as it did hers, though when he spoke, Kellar could hear it, simultaneously graveled and soft like wool.

“Are you alright doll?”

“Are _you_? You were… _detective-napped_ by the same people who are slaughtering and processing people like brahmin –“

“Then I was saved,” Nick cut her off in a soft voice, “and the very same day too.”

Kellar hadn’t realized she’d raised her voice until she’d heard Nick’s quieter one. She adjusted to match and sighed.

But you were still taken – and so quickly. What if I hadn’t found you in time? How did they even _know_?” She could feel hot tears prickle at her eyes and the stinging, flustered heat at her cheeks. Kellar drew her wrist up to her eyes, casting the tears away.

“Hey,” Nick said, a cold compress at her fever.

A few moments later Kellar felt his equally cool touch at her wrist, gently prying away.

“You _did_ save me in time – and I’d trust you to do it again a thousand times over.”

Nick’s yellow eyes trained on hers, almost owlish, willed for her to accept this innate wisdom.

“Yeah, okay,” she finally said. She couldn’t argue any further, because she knew herself that she’d leap to his rescue however many times he needed her to.

“Good,” Nick clapped his hands down on his knees, and the moment popped like a bubble, shiny, fluttered, girlishly pink feelings dissipating so fast, one might hardly believe they were there, to begin with. “We have our work cut out for us, but for now, get some sleep.”

His words, or maybe the phantom of his touch lingering with her invoked a sort of spell on Kellar.

“Yeah, alright.”

She leaned back, not at all bothered at the prospects of falling asleep in her ruined evening gown. Her eyes were shut before her head had even hit the pillow, and Nick went to sit his night vigil by the window, smoking his cigarette, the watchful orange ring staring from the second story window, out onto the dreary Goodneighbor streets.

That had been then.

Now a shriek came from outside – a less traumatized mind would’ve known this was playful, but again, Kellar wasn’t sure. She shook the lingering unease that had settled on her and turned back to their command center.

Though the ‘command center’, as it turned out, was less commanding than requesting, and the only ‘central’ part about it, was where it stood with respect to how Ellie, Nick, and Kellar gathered around it. 

On it, blurry polaroids of the one ghoul that could make Kellar’s stomach pit, and a woman who was so simultaneously beautiful and terrifying that one might thank her kindly as she carved their heart from their chest, sat among clippings from the _Publick Occurrences_ , and _The Neighborhood Post_. Headlines collaged onto the wall behind Nick’s desk leaped out at the trio:

BLOODBATH BY BEANTOWN BREWERY: 3 DEAD, 1 MISSING

MCDONOUGH MISSING, SUTTON STEPS UP

JOURNALIST’S MURDER PUTS COMMONWEALTH ON TRIAL

Red yarn visually linked the pictures of Rabbit and Wolfman to the bolded headlines, and then linked those to smaller pictures; a grainy photo of the Beantown Brewery, an old picture of McDonough with his mile-long, campaign sneer. On the other side of the paper mass, was a picture of Bill Sutton, looking humbled, and a picture of a young brown-haired girl, smiling and linking arms with Piper. 

Kellar had never met the other journalist herself, though had known her to be the editor in chief of Goodneighbor’s rival paper to the _Publick Occurrences_. Piper had been so shaken following the other reporter’s grisly death, that Kellar and Nick had sat watch outside her and Nat’s house for an entire week, ready to be comrades in mourning as needed.

After that, Piper had returned to the beat with renewed fervor, her fear being the gasoline that fed the fire, that forged her silver tongue. Still though, despite Piper’s attempts to goad information from the public, three months had passed since the failed sting at The Third Rail. Instead of solving the puzzle, they’d turned the whole damned table over and tossed all the pieces to the floor, only to find that upon picking them up, they had more pieces than they’d started with, and none of them seemed to fit together.

Kellar’s face unconsciously tensed up as she squinted at the board, willing the answers to manifest within the weave of the yarn, or from behind the dog-eared edges of the paper clippings.

“It’s massive,” Ellie whispered to no one in particular, “the whole operation is just…”

Massive.

“Yeah,” Nick agreed, “and with you here in the office, and just Kellar and I out in the field, I’m not sure if we have the manpower to track these jackals down.”

Kellar didn’t answer, her eyes were still searching the mass of papers for answers – a loophole, a chink in their armor – some sort of lifeline that would lead them straight to some closure.

Hancock, who’d been lounging in the corner, puffing on some jet quietly, took his feet down from where they’d been resting on the corner of Ellie’s desk. Everyone turned at the sound; it was easy to forget he was still there when he was like this.

“I may be able to help with that, Nicky,” he said, grinning his shit-eating grin. “You know I’d love to see this through with you and Killer over here.”

Kellar flinched when Hancock batted her lightly on the shoulder. Everything felt abrasive with Wolfman and Rabbit still on the loose. Everything that was not her or Nick seemed to be screaming back at her – _time’s running out!_

“What did you have in mind?” Nick asked, skeptical.

The Mayor of Goodneighbor was known for his generosity…amongst other things.

Hancock, not noticing Kellar’s prior response to his touch, slung both arms lazily around Nick’s and Kellar’s shoulders.

“For one thing, I want to be there when you guys finally take these sons of bitches down. For another, I offer up the Neighborhood Watch, for some additional ‘boots on the ground’.”

Nick and Kellar exchanged looks. They weren’t used to having someone else on the team, though they couldn’t deny that they needed all the help they could muster…

“C’mon, just point me in the right direction.”

Kellar took a deep breath and fixed her eyes on the mass in front of them. She jabbed a finger in the direction of one of the documents recovered at the Third Rail, three months prior.

It looked to be an inventory sheet – with cap amounts and units of meat. The only sinister thing about the sheet was the too-human names of those who _relinquished_ said meat.

“We start there,” Kellar announced, “with the organ harvests.”

-

Kendall Hospital looked hollow on the outside, the windows staring blearily like the lights behind them had gone out centuries ago. They probably had. When Kellar, Nick, and Hancock drew closer, she could make out the blotted, water-stained glass, streaked like the dirt that encrusted the sill had been mascara globbed onto the building’s once-pretty eyes. Rust stains ran from the windows like its makeup had run.

“Looks awfully quiet,” Hancock remarked.

“Yeah. Too quiet.”

When Nick lowered himself to the ground, the others followed suit. They slunk low and crept up the lot between the rusting skeletons of pre-war cars, waiting for gunfire, and the stinging mist of chem fumes wafting through the air. 

Still though, there were no sounds nor fumes to discern. The place was a ghost town. Their path went uninterrupted, and they wound up in the shade of the overhang, the roof bent like a folded newspaper. The air was acrid here as if the scent of rusted metal had married that of the soft, sallow dirt. Nick and Kellar crouched to the left of the double doors, Hancock on the right. They kept so close to the wall that Kellar could feel the summer-warmed surface radiating heat out against her cheek like the building still thrummed with life. She sincerely hoped there was still life inside.

Kellar felt Nick skim against her flank as he drew close. Her heart leaped to her embarrassment, and she was almost positive he’d felt it.

“Are you alright?”

He looked at her.

“It’s just – it feels like we just got you back, you know?” Kellar hesitated, “and now, we’re walking right into a –“

“House of horrors?”

“Well, hospital technically, but yeah.”

Nick chuckled, and just like that, Kellar felt iron reassurance take hold inside of her.

“Well, I do wish I’d had some time to catch my breath. 

Take a vacation maybe somewhere less…blood spattered for sure. But you’re here, and I’d never find a moment’s peace again if I let you go alone.”

Nick’s gaze held her own and for a moment, Kellar was whisked away from Kendall Hospital. What if he’d looked at her that way in the safety of the Agency? 

What if he had in the privacy of the Rexford? Kellar’s stomach flip-flopped, her blood boiling, burning her skin from the inside. 

Her throat had dried so suddenly that when she’d gulped, she’d feared it might stick shut.

“Hey! Helloooooo! _Lovebirds_ – we’re sort of on a mission here,” Hancock complained loudly from the other side of the door.

Nick shot the ghoul a sharp look.

“Yeah, yell a little louder why don’t ya? Give the bad guys a nice warning.”

At this reminder, the bickering faltered and suddenly the air felt electric. Kellar held up one finger to her lips, willing further silence upon the trio. 

Hancock pressed a finger to his mouth in confirmation of the quiet, then signed a withered _one, two, three_ with his leathery hands.

On ‘three’ Nick and Hancock hooked their hands around the door handles and whipped them open. Kellar rolled lithely from the balls of her feet, expanding to a predatory crouch, and then rose to her feet in a lethal stance, gun at the ready. A cloud of dust had exploded in their entry and Kellar blinked the dust away, scanning the room through the film of grit that painted the entire lobby in sepia tones. Hancock sneezed from behind her.

“Geez, healthcare in the commonwealth really is in shambles,” the ghoul mumbled, swatting at the floated bits of dirt.

“It was before the bombs dropped too,” Kellar answered, tension leaching from her shoulders as she cleared the main room. 

Her gun stayed out and alert.

“Focus guys, we need to find where the Jackal’s fancy, little, meat factory is being operated.”

Nick was inspecting a shelf against the far right wall. 

He swiped his good finger across the top, and when he drew it away, the pale gray of his skin had a darkened, spot at the pad of his index finger. Kellar went to stand beside him. Cannisters of dirty water sat in an eerily neat array on the topmost shelf. The teddy bear and child’s drawing below chunked ice off into her bloodstream. 

“Nick,” Kellar started, her voice strained. “You don’t think they operated on… _children_. There’s no –“

“I don’t know doll,” Nick’s kerosene eyes turned to her, “But we’re here today to stop it. _That’s_ what matters.”

His ruined hand – the one without the dust, went to Kellar’s forearm, and squeezed comfortingly. It took her back to that night at the Hotel Rexford. 

Kellar could only stare at the children’s drawing – where a wobbly character smiled and cinched her chest so tight, she felt she might pass out. She couldn’t draw comfort from Nick’s touch, but she allowed herself to take strength from it and then turned to the doors opposite the entrance.

Her footsteps sounded flat – almost plastic against the floor. 

Until they didn’t. 

Kellar froze, she was so close to the door now, that she was about to brush her hand against the handle. The tile beneath her sounded…loose. Her foot, which had slapped unfeelingly across the floor thus far, had made a noticeably different noise against the red tile at her sole.

“What the-“ Kellar stamped her foot, wanting to recreate the sound, but louder.

And it did – before a splintered sound followed and the red tile cracked into two. Kellar’s brow furrowed. She had killer legs and was no daffodil, but surely she wasn’t _that_ strong?

“The fuck?” Hancock finished her earlier sentiment when he came over to see what had Kellar so fixated. 

Kellar stomped again, jumping and throwing as much of her weight as she could down against the surrounded tiles to see if they all broke in the same way.

Not all of them had broken, but the ones that had, shattered in a formation that looked to be a sort of corner shape. A seven at a perfect right angle.

“Nicky – get over here. Killer’s found something.”

Kellar began her jumping and stomping again, this time being sure to expand her area of effect. Hancock backed up a few feet, meeting Nick halfway from his position at the bookshelf.

“I-It looks like a…square?” 

Kellar stopped, her breathing heavy and cheeks flushed.

She stood next to Hancock and Nick and tried to see what they were seeing. A crumbled square on the floor. A broken window. A-

“Trapdoor!” Kellar exclaimed.

They looked at each other, and then they were throwing themselves onto the floor, prying away shards of broken tile and tossing them away.

A mosaic in reverse, they peeled away the skin of the Kendall Hospital’s closet, hoping to reveal a whole and telling skeleton beneath.

Instead of concrete, there was worn wood, and soon enough, a handle as well. A trapdoor indeed.

They stood, and then Kellar gripped the metal ring with fingers crooked so intensely, the knuckles whitened. She gave a hoist and jerked against the door. It gave a teasing jolt.

Kellar gave another sharp tug, grunting in exertion. 

It gave a little more, but still no cigar.

“ _God._ ” Kellar yanked, her temper spiking. “ _Damn_.” She yanked once more, the sight almost violent as the door hesitated and then flew open, sending Kellar falling backward on to her ass. The rest of the tiles sprinkled from the door as it opened. “ _It_!”

A cloud of dust mushroomed up and stung Kellar’s nose. 

She sneezed and felt an arm steady her above the gaping entrance on the floor.

“ _Careful_ ,” Hancock hissed. “So much for a quiet entry.”

“That was out the door a while ago.”

Kellar tucked her pistol back into its holster at her hip before bracing herself to slip through the trap door entrance.

“Whoa! And now we’re just dropping off into weird holes?”

Hancock and Nick were peering down from above as Kellar shimmied down the ladder, its footholds remaining frustratingly well-hidden in the shadows.

“Solving cases often requires getting your hands dirty,” Kellar grunted as she lost a foothold and then quickly regained it a moment later, her heart still fluttering like a startled bird.

Kellar could still hear Nick’s voice; “She’s right, you know”, as he dropped down after her.

The basement did not resemble the door. The sharp stinging smell of antiseptic mingled with a fleshy, almost butcher-esque scent in the air. As Kellar adjusted, she came to recognize the copper tang of blood and her stomach churned. Whereas the door was creaky and made of some knotted splintered wood, the basement looked like an extension of the operating theaters above. Clinical, cold fluorescent lights had been mounted onto the low hanging ceiling. It was a rather spacious room, lined with beds in a sort of grid pattern. On every single bed, there lay a body, carved up with abdomens spread open like books. 

The stories these bodies told were horrific. 

Now that she had full use of her hands, Kellar grabbed her gun again, and held it out, scanning the room. 

“Guys…you need to get down here,” Kellar called up, her voice hoarse now. Nick and Hancock hit the ground next to her.

“Holy shit,” the ghoul breathed.

It was a bit like Pickman’s gallery, Kellar thought as they picked their way amongst the bodies. Some of the chests still rose and fell slightly – not dead yet, though surely too far gone to scream. 

Nick stooped in to inspect one of the bodies a few beds away from Kellar, his nose inches away from the victim’s viscera.

“Looks like the culprits took what they wanted and left them to bleed out.”

Kellar had to turn away. On the wall opposite her, there was a shelf with jars, and in the jars, only sort-of distinguishable lumps floated – an eye here, a kidney there, and that was as specific as Kellar could be.

Her stomach heaved, and she swallowed her bile down. She pinched her eyes shut and tried to breathe in deeply through her mouth.

“You alright over there?”

“Yeah, I just need a –“

A clatter sounded from across the room. Kellar’s eyes flew open and all three of them whirled around in the direction of the sound. They all had their guns drawn and were drawing closer to the apparent source in even strides. A set of plastic dressing curtains were at one end of the room, too close to the wall to be practical. Unless…

“Show yourself,” Kellar demanded, though her eyes were already watching the pair of feet poking out from beneath.

They crept closer, waiting for a flurry of movement and for a shower of bullets to spray from the curtain, but they never came.

When the curtains seemed to barely contain the form of a person on the other side and they were within an arms reach of them, Hancock wrenched the curtain aside from the opposite end that the feet were at. Hancock managed an iron grip on the stranger’s wrist and yanked him out from his cover.

The man didn’t look afraid – not outright. His face was as cold and clinical as his craft, and he matched Kellar’s challenging gaze with one of his own. In fact, the only way she knew he was afraid was from the scent of ammonia, and the wet patch at his trousers.

She glanced down at her shoes and repressed a look of disgust. She supposed it was too late to watch where they stepped. Somehow, drawing attention to this felt cruel, even to the extent where it was too excessive for a man who stole organs from people. She ignored it for now.

“You – you work here, don’t you?”

The man’s lips shook as he pressed them even more tightly together. He raised his chin as if _daring_ her to make him speak.

“Hey, buddy,” Hancock said in a cajoling voice before he turned the man and shoved him down onto the ground with one smooth movement. While Hancock wasn’t tall, he packed a dangerous punch. Sort of wolverine like, Kellar thought as she watched him bring his bony little knee cap between the man’s shoulder blades, and force him down to the ground in what must’ve been the most humiliating pose he could think of.

The man was still ghastly silent, though his face was wetted and streaked with grimy tears that pooled onto the tile where his cheek was pressed.

“The lady asked you a question.”

When the man’s body seemed to rise as he struggled to breathe Kellar could see that Hancock’s body was preventing him from doing so very well. The man’s breath roughened, and he shook more violently.

“No manners, huh?” the ghoul purred, his knee digging further into the man’s back.

“John, stop.”

Hancock looked up, watching Kellar – not angry, but not guilty either. The sound of a faint cracking startled both of them into looking down at the man. 

The shaking had stopped.

“What the hell?”

Kellar knelt down.

“Hancock, lift your boot.”

The mayor obliged just in time for the man’s body to start convulsing. A scratchy gurgling noise sounded from his throat, but before Kellar could pry his mouth open to see what he was choking on, frothy saliva spilled out, and dribbled down his chin.

“I swear I wasn’t holding him that hard – not enough to kill the bastard!”

“It’s not that,” Nick murmured, taking a knee by Kellar. 

“I’d bet my hat that this man was poisoned.”

Kellar’s brow furrowed, and it didn’t take her long after Nick mentioned poison to reach a conclusion. “He was. By himself, I think.”

Hancock raised where an eyebrow should’ve been, sending wrinkles spidering into more wrinkles.

“You see this before?”

Kellar shook her head, “Not really, not technically. But…I’ve heard stories, about…Chinese spies doing it, pre-war. Cyanide pills they could crush in their mouths when they needed to, so they could ensure they wouldn’t give out information if captured.”

Nick and Kellar rose to their feet.

“Well, we’re not getting any information out of him. 

We should search the room, see if we can get anything else from this…mess.”

The bodies sitting butchered on the tables felt twice as dead now that Kellar had just watched a man die in front of her. She stepped carefully as if she might wake the already disturbed bodies. Her throat was tight; the last line of defense if her churning stomach decided to reject the morning’s breakfast of power noodles.

She pressed her mouth into a thin line as she peered closer at the bodies. Every part of them was open except for their eyes. Some of the mouths were slackened, dark lakes of blood pooling at the back of their throats and dribbling out the corners of their lips. Others had their mouths propped open with strange-looking metal devices, their teeth missing, gum holes gaping in silent screams.

Layers of skin and muscle were opened liked cabinet doors, rib spreaders preventing any bodily secrecy, limbs splayed around like macabre starfish. In all this bloody spreading, Kellar’s attention was caught by one body in particular – the second to last one she might check according to the sequence of beds she’d been searching. The woman looked rather ordinary – or she probably had been when she was alive. When Kellar peeked past her eyelids and crows’ feet, she saw clear blue eyes. Her hair was brown, shorter in the front, and swept away from her eyes, even in the disarray of death – a lot like hers. It was hard to tell looking at her now, but Kellar concluded that she’d probably been pretty at one point.

That’s not what had caught her attention though, rather it had been the woman’s body; her arm thrown across her chest, fingers clutched delicately inwards. When Kellar looked closer, she could see something crumpled and white between the gaps of her fingers.

“I think I found something.”

Hancock and Nick looked up.

“Like what?”

“Not sure yet.”

Kellar picked up the rag dangling from the foot of the gurney and pinched it in her grip so that she could have something between her bare hands and the body as she gingerly moved its hand away. She kept her eyes averted from the woman. 

The crumpled paper fell from her fingers, and now Kellar felt confident in ditching the rag. She placed it over the woman’s face like a shrunken funeral shroud.

She unfolded the note, and her heart dropped before she’d even finished reading the note. The letters were blocky and mismatched – like they’d been snatched from magazines. There was no way to know who’d written this, but it was clear that the author, whoever it was, already knew them.

“Nick, you should see this.”

“What is it, doll?”

Kellar angled the note, straightening out the spidering wrinkles as best she could. She watched the tiny movements of Nick’s eyes as they traced the words; _I FOUND YOU, NOW YOU COME FIND ME._

Below was a russet smear – dried blood, from the woman she’d taken the note from? Kellar didn’t entertain the thought long, feeling implicated just by considering it. 

The smear resembled a smiley face, with too short blots for eyes, and a bowl-shaped smile below. On one end was a little bend that made it look like an arrow, swooping upwards.

“And what does _this_ mean? Should this look familiar to us?”

“ _Does_ it look familiar?”

“I can’t say it does,” If Nick had a brow, it would’ve been deeply furrowed. He scratched at the back of his neck, “but I can’t say it _doesn’t_ either.”

“Hey Hancock – ever seen this before?”

The ghoul kicked a splintered bit of Commonwealth debris, sending it skittering across the floor beneath the gurneys.

“Nope.”

-

Whatever sense of safety one could distill from the ragtag walls of Goodneighbor, was gone. Where before it had worn the comforting seclusion of smoke screened streets bathed in neon – drowned in strangers and thus, targeted by none, now Kellar felt like the sultry atmosphere and discrete populace outside were a bit too shifty– every one a potential investor for _Les Chacals_.

“You’ve been awfully quiet.”

Kellar looked up, startled from her swirling reveries. 

Nick and Hancock were looking at her; it was too late to pretend that she’d just been spacing out.

“Yeah, it was just…a really gruesome crime scene.”

Hancock clapped his arm around Kellar’s shoulders, the sound and sting of which made her flinch.

“Aw c’mon, you’ve never been bothered by the sight of blood before Killer. This didn’t seem half as bad as Pickman’s Galley – and I got to it after you’d already tipped him off and he tried to ‘clear out’ the place.”

Kellar hesitated. That was different. Pickman killed people who hurt others – he thought he was delivering justice and creating something beautiful from the wastes of the world. Rabbit and Wolfman knew they were hurting people – _just_ people and enjoyed it. Turning a profit was just an added bonus for them.

Kellar’s gut twisted inside of her, pulsating and inflamed, the woman whose face was familiar, too familiar, popping up in her mind, sightless blue eyes staring.

They said that when you died, you saw your eyes flash before your eyes. Would Kellar see this woman’s face twice? Once as she had that day, and the second as it appeared on her own broken body when the life ebbed from it?

“Hey, come back down to earth.”

Because it was Nick asking, Kellar obliged. It was the coolness of him through his coat that soothed where Hancock’s touch had seared her.

“What’s eating at you?”

That woman had looked so much like her. That woman could’ve _been_ her. Might _be_ her before the investigation ended, one way or another. Her throat tightened like there was an invisible hand there.

“ _You didn’t see it?_ ” Kellar finally managed to choke out.

“See what?”

Both of her companions looked bewildered, dark shining eyes, and lamp-glow yellow mirroring their confusion back to Kellar.

“That woman! Me. How we-“

They exchanged a look, and when they spoke next, it was Hancock.

“Sister, listen, that was – a coincidence. She was just some woman; don’t tell me you’re getting superstitious all of a sudden.”

“ _I’m_ just a woman. That could’ve been my body you found; coincidence be damned.” 

“It wasn’t though.”

“But it might be.”

“It _won’t_ ,” Nick said, suddenly forceful. Hancock fell quiet, his eyes falling to his lap. 

Despite his withered appearance and rasped voice, he suddenly resembled a child, uncertain and ashamed of that.

“You can’t guarantee that.”

Nick had reached over to rest his good hand on Kellar’s, which were knotted tersely at her knees. It was clear Hancock noticed this, despite how he refused to look at them.

“I am, right now. Have you ever known me to break a promise to you?”

She hadn’t. Not to anyone, really. She shook her head mutely.

“Alright then. You’ll be fine doll, if there’s anything I’ll make sure of through this, it’s that. Like you did for me.”

At the last part, Kellar felt her resolve strengthen once more, as abruptly as it had been sapped from her. As much as she had willed it for him, he’d do so for her. 

That was a little comforting.

“Yeah, okay.” 

Hancock sat up from where he lounged on his plush red couch.

“You know what? It’s been a long day, why don’t you guys take a walk, clear your heads?”

“What are you going to do?” Kellar asked, eyeing the chems piled at the center of his coffee table like a kid’s Halloween candy haul.

“Same as you guys,” Hancock paused to lift his puffer of jet up to his lips, and inhaled deeply, “clearing my head.”

It was briskly cold when Kellar stepped out onto the street, the halo of light tossed out from the streetlamp deceptively yellow – and not the least bit warmer than the dark. 

“So, where to?” Nick asked, joining her in the puddle of light.

“I dunno. Coffee?”

“Coffee seems like as good an idea as any.”

They shuffled along, clutching their coats tighter around themselves, crossing the ten feet from the corner by the Old State House to The Third Rail when something a sickening mustard color caught her eye.

Talk about _yellow_ flags.

Kellar stopped suddenly in the middle of the road, gaping at where was, to everyone else, probably a worn brick wall.

“Nick, wait.”

“What is-“

That. There. 

Nick instantly recognized the messy, spray-painted face on the wall, putrid yellow on the deep maroon and pink of brick, like an infection on flayed skin. The head of the arrow gave the snarling grimace of a face, a weird dimple.

“Someone from here?”

“I don’t see why not. But,” Nick lowered his voice suddenly. “ _Who_ then?” 

Kellar turned and looked around, desperate to catch a glimpse of someone who might’ve potentially left the mark, but save for her and Nick, the streets were empty. The buildings around them felt stifling, like they were ganging up on them, crouching forwards with a leer; _who are you even looking for?_

Kellar felt that stranglehold on her neck again, but when her own hands flew up to the column of her throat, they were the only hands there. Her breathing roughened and chest tightened.

There was no way this could be a coincidence, which frankly, even if it was, Kellar wouldn’t have believed it anyway. The note in her dead doppelganger’s hand, the symbol on the wall the very night they return – there was something to be found in this city if only Kellar had the stomach to peel back the sultry shroud and look.

“I don’t know yet,” Kellar replied, “but they’re close.”

She rounded the corner, to where the entrance of the building with the symbol was. The windows were boarded up, and the mail slot, bolted shut – this was a triggerman’s house. Kellar had no reaction to this revelation though if it could even be considered one. 

Half the “reputable” businesses in the Commonwealth seemed to be pressed under Rabbit and Wolfman’s thumb – why not use the sleazy, pack-mentality criminals as their boots on the ground? 

They were probably a cheaper buyout than the Cannery, and the Cannery had been more desperate for caps than MacCready if he’d decided to get a jump on revitalizing the NukaCola brand.

Nick had caught up to Kellar in nearly no time at all.

“I feel bad about entering without a warrant,” Nick mumbled, eyeing how Kellar’s fingers artfully worked the lock with a stray bobby pin she’d procured from behind her ear.

“Nick, it’s Goodneighbor – nothing’s sacred.”

“Right,” he sighed just as the lock yielded to his partner.

It creaked open as too-bright yellow and pink light flooded the entryway. It was eerily quiet.

Kellar waited for the spray of bullets or alarmed voices, and when none came, she crept in, sidling through the gap between the door and the frame, not daring to push it open any further than her initial breach had. She was on the balls of her feet, careful to feel around at the wood floor before putting her full-weight down – like how one might cross a frozen lake.

Kellar paused and gagged mutely. There was that _stench_ again – raw meat and the spicy tang of blood and sweat. Kellar had never thought much about corpse sweat until now, and boy was there a reason for that. Were there two organ harvesting centers? Kellar’s stomach bittered inside of her. How could she and Nick have been so fucking _stupid_? This had to be a plot to lure them here, lure them here and –

“Man, I can’t trust you guys alone for _five_ minutes.”

Kellar and Nick nearly jumped out of their skin when they turned around to find Hancock’s black eyes gleaming, his arms crossed as he shook his head.

“You guys knock my bad habits, but c’mon – breaking and entering ain’t a peach either.”

“Sshh,” Kellar hissed, “we’re following a clue. Shut up or _get out_.”

Hancock stooped low, shimmying in to join Kellar and Nick before turning and quietly closing the front door behind him. 

“You do know this is my town, right? That I’m the mayor?”

“Checks and balances,” Kellar mumbled turning back towards the dark house. 

She’d been in enough basements for one day, and yet, once she caught a glimpse of red spotting its way down the steps that wound past a green door and downwards into oblivion, she couldn’t ignore it. She sighed heavily. 

“Looks like there was recent activity heading towards the basement.”

“Right behind you.”

Miraculously, the wood barely creaked beneath their collective shuffle to the basement. They moved, like different units of the same body, scuttling with the same litheness and agility. The shadows melted away the further they descended down the staircase, fluorescent lights flooding the cavern below. The temperature dropped off the edge of some moral cliff, and Kellar felt herself tense in response. When she moved to push a lock of hair behind her ears, she barely registered her own hand – it felt more akin to stone.

In some ways, it was just like the cellar at Kendall Hospital, and in other ways, it was nothing like it. There were, for example, an abundance of dead bodies, but they were not lying on gurneys. Any horror Kellar had felt at the hospital, she immediately regretted not saving for here. 

The bodies were dismembered – and she wished that that was as specific as she could’ve been. Their clothes were nowhere to be found.

The bodies were in what could’ve been organized into a grid-like pattern, like at Kendall, but instead of laying down, they were strung up from the basement ceiling by rusted chains, the blood streaking down the length of their body like the stripes on melons. Kellar didn’t even think to be appalled at their nakedness – she could barely recognize them as people in this orientation. Their eyes were mostly closed, she thought, but she couldn’t bring herself to check.

Her breath came in billowing clouds, as it did from Nick and Hancock. That was how they knew they were the only ones alive in this make-shift freezer.

Hancock got closer to the bodies than Nick and Kellar did. His withered hands reached up, cupping one of the heads of the body’s, with a tenderness Kellar had never before seen him wield.

“Ah shit, Donny,” he muttered before turning back to his team. “Guess this is where all those missing scavvers wound up.”

The bitter edge in his voice was too sharp and Kellar flinched, feeling its bite. 

“We should check the rest of the house,” Nick said, after a few silent moments. “There doesn’t seem to be much left here for us to go on.”

Hancock sent the synth a sharp look, which didn’t go unnoticed.

“If you know any of their names, we should tell the families after,” Nick’s voice was gentle, “but I don’t think there’s any evidence here. This was…the dumpsite, not the crime scene.”

Hancock stared hard at the ground, his wrinkled face furrowing further. For a split second, Kellar thought she saw his hands tense around the victim’s face, but then she blinked and he just looked sad again.

“Yeah,” was all he said.

The trio made their way back upstairs, less stringently silent than before. They climbed the staircase past the ground level floor at their full height, no longer bothering with the crouch they’d initially sunk into.

Contrary to how they’d found themselves in the rest of the house, they were decidedly no longer alone on the second floor. 

The stairs opened up into a series of rooms that was really just one large attic area, divided by pieces of plywood plastered up into flimsy walls. While they did nothing to keep noise out, they provided useful visual cover, and the trio utilized it the best they could, getting close enough that the cigar smoke made Kellar’s eyes water. She could make out the crescent moons of sweat at the pits of the triggermen’s shirts.

“So, how do you want to play this?” Nick asked in a low voice. 

“ _Please_ say bold and brash,” Hancock said, spindly fingers working at the gun at his hip. “I’m just itchin’ to let off some steam.”

“ _Sshh_ ,” Kellar hissed.

About five triggermen ringed a small, dingy table, playing cards, darting gazes sniping out at their compatriots from beneath the brims of trilby hats.

“Do you guys ever feel like you’re being watched?” One asked, cigar bobbing at his mouth.

Kellar froze, holding her breath so that not even the whisper of air in her windpipe might give her away.

“ _Shaddup_ Gunther,” a ghoul with a shock of red curls snapped from across the table. “Yer jus’ scared ‘n shite because Toody bowed.”

“Fuckin’ coward,” the lone smoothskin in the room added.

“Yeah, well, s’no skin off our backs – order got shipped out, nice and punctual, jus’ like Wolfman wanted. “So now, all there’s left fer us to do is wait. Take a load off.”

“Until the next order comes in,” the one that must’ve been Gunther mumbled, not sounding convinced. 

The rest of the circle didn’t seem to take it upon themselves to be his keeper though, because they just kept their attentions on their cards.

“Exactly.”

The slap of cards being played sounded in sequence, and there was a murmuring of carrying “Raise,”, a number, and some “Fold”s.

In the quiet, Kellar thought she could hear her heartbeat. They were all sitting so close to one another – and the ‘room’ left their options, and range of movement, limited. There was no way to play this stealthy.

“Fine,” Kellar breathed, “bold and brash it is?”

“Really?” 

Hancock sounded pleased, and Kellar was sure that if Nick had the space for it, he would’ve been pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Hey,” Smoothskin asked, “did you guys hear something?”

For a few moments, no one said anything, just exchanged a serious of questioning looks. Hancock, not needing an invitation for anything ever, stood, gun already cocked, the barrel peering inquisitively through two slats of plywood.

“I don’t know about you guys,” he said, “but I didn’t.”

His finger squeezed at the trigger.

Gunther, poor Gunther, was standing, moon-eyed for one moment before suddenly his scalp erupted into a starburst of viscera. 

Kellar flinched and felt a sickening wetness blot at her face.

In the next moment, Nick’s hand was hooked around the crease of her elbow and dragging her down. They hit the deck as a spray of bullets sprayed at the plywood, punching holes with an intensity that threatened to tear the flimsy walls down. 

Hancock was the first one back up, bullet eagerly waiting for him to pull the trigger again from the chamber. 

Nick and Kellar followed closely, their own guns unholstered.

Gunther was dead before he hit the ground. The one that had dismissed Gunther’s claims of being watched, beelined for the mayor of Goodneighbor, cocking his double-barreled shotgun. Hancock was bringing the business end of his shotgun down atop the other ghouls’ head before he’d finished reloading.

The man crumpled to the ground, too disoriented to respond effectively.

“Mayor - thought you wanted to leave the power to the people,” one called scathingly from beneath the table they’d been using for poker.

“That’s only if the people know better than to be assholes,” Hancock shot back.

Kellar and Nick were sharing a portion of the wall that had come loose, taking cover in turn and shooting at the remaining three. With two down, Hancock joined them.

From there on, it was just a matter of sending off the bullets faster than the remaining triggermen, and with their one-man advantage, that wasn’t terribly difficult to do. Kellar watched Hancock take a bullet to the shoulder with a raw sort of strength that only could possibly occur to a man who’d already seen his share of what life held, and then she and Nick emerged from behind the splintered wood and landed two shots that brought the rest of their opponents to their knees.

Kellar dropped down to check on Hancock first. 

She went to him, hands pressed against the darker red blotted at his crimson frock.

“S-stay still,” Kellar ordered in a hoarse voice. 

She hated that she couldn’t sound as strong as she needed to be. “You’ll be fine.”

Hancock strained against her grip.

“I know Killer,” he grunted, “it’s a gunshot wound, for Chrissake, but it hurts like a bitch.”

“Stay _down_.” She pushed him forcefully against the wood, and Nick joined them.

“Room’s clear.” He turned to the wounded ghoul, “How are you doing?”

“Don’t mind me, I’m just baking a – _how do you fuckin’ think I’m doing?_ ”

Nick sighed before reaching into the deep pockets of his coat, where he procured a travel-sized first aid kit.

“Well now, who told you to stand up before God and everyone before shooting the man?” Nick retorted. “You should’ve waited for Kellar and me.” He popped the latch and a stimpak tumbled out into the palm of his hand. 

By the time he jabbed the needle through the ghoul’s frock and into the muscle connecting his neck to his shoulder, the wound had already stopped bleeding.

“Well look at that,” Nick remarked, “good as…well, not ‘new’, but shall we say, ‘gently used’?”

Kellar laughed as Hancock shot the old synth a glower, but it was proof enough that he was alright.

“I was about to go on about the _de_ -humanity of it all, but I guess that’s saved our sorry butts more than once. I have a lifetime warranty to most repairmen, and all it cost me was my humanity,” Nick chuckled a little bleakly, and after a grunt, as he propped himself up on his elbows, Hancock joined him.

The relief Kellar had felt just a few moments before evaporated, and suddenly she felt a little like she’d lost something. 

“Don’t say that,” she frowned, “you’re the most human person I know.”

Both men stopped laughing to look at her. Nick looked a bit taken aback, the way Hancock watched her though, dark eyes steady and with bottomless, black depths, made Kellar think that secretly, he agreed with her.

“If you can even liken ‘being human’ with being good. Wolfman – a human, did this to other humans after all.” Kellar’s voice scraped against her throat. “Nick, you’re a better person than Wolfman. Both of you are. Better than the scum who did this, biology be damned.”

Nick reached over to gently grab Kellar’s hand, his large hand wrapping over her own tightly clenched fist. The touch pulled her from her train of thought, and it was just now that she noticed the bite of her nails into her palm.

“Thanks, doll.”

Kellar looked at Nick and felt the warmth of his eyes starburst in her cheeks. If she’d been holding her breath, she might’ve passed out.

“Well aren’t you kids sweet?” Hancock crooned from below. 

Nick shot him a glare at being referred to as a ‘kid’ by the man he used to bail out of the DC Jail on the regular in his adolescent years. Hancock maneuvered himself so that he was sitting upright, and flexed his shoulder, wincing at the stiffness, but seemingly no worse for wear.

“Now, if you’re done being sappy, we have some mobsters to catch.”

As it turned out, even with Hancock’s renewed enthusiasm, the fact of the matter was that they still had no idea where Wolfman and Rabbit were. The symbol on the note had been their only viable lead, but it had died with the triggerman’s house. They had discovered two places of operation that _Les Chacals_ had been using, and yet, these were two of what – ten? A hundred? When one closed down, they had the means to easily reopen two in their place. Truth was, was that their current strategy – which barely constituted as a strategy at all – wasn’t working, and what made matters worse was that it was the only one they had.

Now, in Diamond City once more, the three sulked at Power Noodles, pushing their food around in their bowls. Hancock shot paranoid looks over his shoulder, knowing full well that the DC Guard hadn’t forgotten about his…legacy founded decades ago.

It was strange, Kellar thought, how busy and lively the streets of Goodneighbor were, people smiling and laughing and shopping. 

Lovers held hands and strolled through the winding streets, while children chased each other. Here, under the overhang of the Power Noodles’ counter, Hancock, Nick, and Kellar felt trapped beneath their own personal raincloud. A cloud that everyone else seemed to have an umbrella for, in the impending storm. 

At this turn in her thoughts, the picturesque morning in Diamond City now felt somewhat sinister. The sky was still a tasteless blue, and the people were still smiling. 

Peel back the cheery wallpaper though, and what would she find? Scratch marks on the wall? A bloodied handprint? Kellar felt her chest tighten, and suddenly the longer she looked the more she was seeing.

Was that man by Chem-I-Care staring at her? Was Choice Chops in on it too? Kellar turned to her own bowl and imagined the floated noodles as maggots writhing in a human carcass. 

“Oh yes, divine - absolutely _inspired_ ,” a woman drawled to her friend a few seats away.

Irritation flared in Kellar, the woman’s voice grating on the inside of her skull. She sent a daggered glare in the direction of the voice.

The woman was copper headed, her brassy locks shot with silver. She wore pearls and a periwinkle dress that pulled tight around her middle when she spoke or laughed, with a matching pillbox hat. Definitely an upper-stands woman, Kellar concluded. The woman was modeling her clutch for her friend, who gaped wide-eyed, looking respectably impressed.

Kellar might’ve thought the other woman was faking if her own attention hadn’t been caught by the little bag.

It definitely didn’t resemble any bag she’d ever owned. While the shape itself made it clear it was a clutch, the fabric leered something more sinister. 

It was unpleasantly beige, the color of uncooked chicken. The way the silver clasps caught at the top brought to mind metal chewing through flesh, and Kellar felt her own hands pinch at the meat of her forearm.

“You alright doll? You look like you’re going a little green.”

Kellar wanted to speak but didn’t feel like she could trust her throat to let just the words out. She nodded a tight look on her face and kept watching the woman.

“What is that? Brahmin leather?” the impressed woman asked.

The redhead was now caressing the pouch.

“No, no dear. Brahmin leather is _so_ last season. This here is a special sort of leather – one of a limited variety, and exclusive to…certain members of _refined_ society.” The woman shot Nick and Kellar a look that told them they weren’t included in such a society. “Feel _dahling_ , it’s way softer than that sandpaper the common people use.”

The lady’s friend petted the clutch gently like it might purr if she did it the correct way. 

“Wherever did you get such a purse?”

“Oh, Fallon’s, you know, - what a dear, bless her heart. Though, let me warn you if you have half a mind to get the same one – it cost me a pretty penny, a very pretty penny indeed. I had to ask specifically for the actual ‘basement’ selection before she’d even show me her stock.”

It was just a purse – and not even a _cute_ one. 

Kellar tried to swallow the lump in her throat but couldn’t tear her eyes away. _A special kind of leather_.

The lump stuck, and she thought of the past few days; the torsos hanging upside down in the triggermen’s freezer, the ice crystals pink as the blood seeped into them. The woman’s face and the cloth Kellar placed over it back at Kendall Hospital. 

Her stomach twisted in her gut, and she pushed her bowl away. Nick looked up at this.

“Done already? You’ve hardly touched it.”

“Yeah, I-“ she swallowed again and almost choked. 

“I’m not super hungry right now.”

At Kendall Hospital, the body cavities had been terrible, open, bloody – but empty. Save for the ribs, which were spread. All the organs, Kellar assumed, had maintained their use even after Wolfman and Rabbit were done with them.

And then in the freezer – all of that _meat_. 

They weren’t people, couldn’t be anymore, not as Kellar had seen them, with the skin flayed, and great hunks missing like a butcher cut slabs and wrapped them for salivating patrons.

Skin had use, Kellar thought, her gut churning, and there had been skin missing at the crime scene, _therefore_ -

She shoved off of her stool and stalled on her feet as if invisible puppet strings had caught her, mid-motion.

Nick watched Kellar, watched as she looked to the ladies huddled around the small purse like she wanted to go and inquire about it herself. Instead, Kellar pivoted to face Fallon’s, the familiar, unassuming shop smiling politely at her on a normal Diamond City day with a smile that had too many teeth.

“Kellar?”

Nick’s voice was urgent now, and she found herself reaching out to reassuringly pat his arm. Or else, to just pat his arm.

“I’m going….to do a bit of shopping.”

“Huh?”

“Be right back –“

Kellar wanted to go to Fallon’s, needed to see for herself, but couldn’t. Nick’s hand had found the crook of her elbow, had hooked her caught.

“Hey now – we’re a team,” he turned Kellar so that she had to face him, and was immediately cut off by the wild distress in her eyes. “ _Talk to me_.”

Kellar looked from Nick to Fallon’s, to Nick again.

“Talk! To _me_ ,” Nick gave her a little shake, which seemed to wake her right up.

Kellar’s hands came up to grab the lapels of Nick’s coat.

“I think…I have a lead,” she finally said, and then shook her head. “Well, no, not even a lead. A _hunch_ is more like it.”

“That’s better than what we had twenty minutes ago. Let’s get going.”

Kellar hesitated, her mouth pinching into a fine line.

“I think I should go alone.”

Nick’s face, which had lit up just before then, fell.

“No, absolutely not.”

His unwillingness to separate from her made her heart skip a beat, and Kellar ignored the feeling, for now, needing to focus on the case.

“Nick, it’ll be too conspicuous if we both go. This is better. Trust me.”

Nick was quiet.

“You _do_ trust me, don’t you?”

Around them, Diamond City bustled on. Hancock was still scowling and slurping noodles. 

Nick sighed. 

“You know I do, but this operation? This case? It’s much bigger than anything we’ve done before – anything I’ve done before. If you’re right –“

“I might not be.”

“But if you _are_ , and those Jackals are in on this, then you’re waltzing into the ‘lion’s den’ so to speak, completely alone, and I…” he swallowed though it wasn’t possible for him to have a lump in his throat. 

Kellar softened at this, her grip on him, which had been white-knuckled before, was almost tender as it clutched him.

“I get it – probably better than most. Remember that night at the Third Rail?”

There could only be one she was referring to.

“I didn’t even want to let you go out for a smoke. A smoke! In a town, we’ve been to a thousand times, and the worst-case scenario still happened.”

Nick grimaced.

“You’re not helping your case here, doll. If the worst-case can still happen with the home advantage, then it could doubly happen here.”

“Oh Nick,” Kellar smiled, her hand moving to squeeze his shoulder. “They’ve taken our home. There _is_ no advantage anymore.”

-

Leaving Nick at the Power Noodles stand had been easier than Kellar thought, with Hancock not even questioning their terse conversation. 

“A lover’s quarrel,” he’d shrugged as Kellar went off, before making a kissy face at Nick, which earned him a smack upside the head from the uncharacteristically petulant detective.

Now, Kellar found herself wiping cold sweat from her hands onto her trousers. She fidgeted between putting her hands in her pockets (too sweaty, though more discrete in wiping it off) and keeping them at her sides (more natural-looking.)

She felt Nick’s eyes at her back and forced herself down Fallon’s stairs without looking back at her partner. 

The inside of Fallon’s Basement was cool, the lighting dim. Kellar traded lungfuls of acrid, smoke-charred air, for mothballs and dust. 

She sneezed, and Becky Fallon looked up from behind the counter.

“We ain’t a charity and we shoot thieves on sight.”

Kellar managed a smile.

“Well, lucky for you I’m looking to spend some caps, and I don’t seem to have any bullet holes in me.”

Fallon narrowed her eyes.

“If I catch you stealing anything, you will. Hands above your waist.”

Nick’s voice sounded at the back of Kellar’s head, stern; _Being cheeky isn’t nearly as cute as you think it is._

Kellar swallowed, and shifted so that her arms were awkwardly bent at the elbows, fingers fidgeting with each other in front of her ribcage.

“Well? Are you going to look around, or are you going to stand there and block the door?”

“Well, actually,” Kellar paused and cleared her throat. “I ah – I have a lot of caps burning a hole in my pocket if you catch me drift. Like, _a lot_.”

“Great. Go buy something then,” Fallon had resumed counting the caps in the cash register and started counting them over again. She didn’t even look up this time.

Kellar meandered over to the counter, trying to look casual. When she got there, she was grateful for somewhere to rest her hands. She tapped her knuckles down in the rhythm to “Shave and A Haircut”, which _did_ make Fallon look up, albeit with the expression of one that had just spotted molerat droppings on their floor. 

“What do you want?”

“I was, uh, hoping you could show me to the – you know… _basement section_?”

Kellar looked at Fallon hopefully, and the other woman didn’t seem fazed at all. She just stared at Kellar. Hard.

Finally, she shut the register and came around the counter.

“Fine, follow me please – and _don’t touch anything unless you plan on buying it_.”

Downstairs was dank and somehow dustier than the main level, but after one click of the light switch, the ceiling fixtures rallied hesitantly on and bathed the area in harsh, white light.

Kellar winced, blinking, her eyes struggling to adjust back to a well-lit environment.

Fallon continued inwards a few steps and then turned around, spreading her arms to gesture to the room around her. 

“Here we are - the basement selection. Feel free to look around but try not to touch anything; this leather scuffs more easily than regular leather.”

Kellar’s limbs felt like iron as she forced herself towards the nearest display case. These were different from the typical ones she’d seen around the Commonwealth. They were lined with red felt, the glass panes rimmed in gold. 

Any majesty or awe the cases themselves inspired though, were overshadowed with the stomach-wrenching appearances of the wares inside. 

Strips of leather in varying shades of beige and brown were lined up like the rungs of a ladder. Not so bad, Kellar thought at first, they could just be regular belts. 

Golden buckles gleamed on them, flashing reassuringly. Yes, Kellar had worn belts like these pre-war.

Upon closer inspection, were little placards of cream-colored stationery under each belt. The first thing scrawled on them in Fallon’s elegant script was a price – the skinniest of belts starting at 30,000 caps.

Prices that would have Kellar clutching her pearls – if she’d been wealthy enough to have pearls in the first place.

After that though, was something Kellar didn’t make sense of at first. 

_Charlotte Sandoval_

A name. Kellar wracked her memory for it, but it didn’t ring any bells. 

The last thing on the placard was a small number.

_38_

What the hell? Kellar looked to the next placard, beneath a wider belt. This one had intricate prints pressed into the leather, the rich man’s paisley.

_45,000 c Stella Norman 19_

This one, Kellar didn’t have to think about for long, before snow fell in her clouded memory, bringing in the image of her wind-bitten cheeks disguising the way her face burned as Nick’s hand occasionally bumped hers from the right.

It had been about a year ago, _and they had just come back to the Agency from speaking with the family. A fellow lower-stands citizen, with a comfy home that was just recently found to be short a member._

_Mr. Norman had been a self-made, salt of the earth man; with a modest, but sustained business as a handyman, and a beautiful wife and three daughters._

_Mrs. Norman had been strikingly pretty, even with the tears that dewed in her eyes, and caught at her eyelashes, raindrops on spiders’ legs._

_A girl – who Kellar guessed to be one of Stella’s younger sisters, Allena - had the same bright, auburn hair as her sibling, though her eyes were of the emerald hue of her mother’s, not the pale, somewhat-omniscient blue of her father’s. When Nick and Kellar had come in, she had been lurking from behind a dresser, her eyes ringed with red, and punctuated by dark, bruise-like shadows beneath._

_Nick went to shake hands with Mr. Norman immediately, introducing them. Kellar had trailed behind enough to catch Allena’s eye and send her a small, reassuring smile. Allena’s gaze dropped to the floor, and she sniffled loudly._

_Stella had gone missing after leaving her home to run errands earlier. It had been a half-hour past midnight when Nick and Kellar had been summoned to the home – way later than when Stella’s family had expected their daughter to be home. A time when only ‘unsavory folks hung about’, said Mrs. Norman, in a hoarse, sob-grated voice._

_During the first round of questions, Mr. Norman had seemed angry, getting frustrated when Nick pressed on about Stella’s daily routines, and acquaintances. He’d brought his hand down hard on the table, so much so that Mrs. Norman and Allena had jumped at the sound, and the half-full drinking glass had threatened to topple over._

_“God damn it, I told you – it’s that no-good boyfriend of hers. That damned, Ferguson boy! Stop asking me inane questions and_ get _him already!”_

_Kellar had remembered the tempered iron in Nick’s gaze. He never got upset when families yelled at him, he knew it was only their pain speaking._

_From behind Mr. Norman’s seat, Mrs. Norman let out a strangled noise and brought a shaky hand down on her husband’s shoulder._

_“Now, Lawrence, you know Leonard wouldn’t lay a h-ha-“_

_Kellar could see that Mr. Norman’s eyes were ringed with red too, as he wordlessly caught his wife’s hand on his shoulder with his own, and brought it to his lips._

“See anything you like?” Fallon’s smoky voice jerked Kellar from the memory, and she scrambled for a reassuring smile.

“Oh yes, lots, but I want to see it all before I make my decision.”

This seemed to please Fallon, “Of course, of course – it’s hard to pick when they’re all so great. I like the bottom row ones best myself. They last the longest, so they’re worth the pretty cap.”

Kellar nodded like the notion of trading caps for human flesh didn’t make her want to throw up in a place that already had too much human DNA in it.

Fallon reached around Kellar to tap at the glass where it rested a few inches above the bottom row selection. This belt was thicker than the rest and imbued with a sinister-looking, red stitch. The placard beneath read; _80,000c Leonard Ferguson 21_

Fuck.

“Y-yeah,” Kellar managed a cough before her throat clammed up completely. “Looks _great_. If you’ll just give me a moment to uh, peruse.”

“Of course,” Fallon studied Kellar for a moment, her smile unwavering, and then she stepped back. “I’ll be upstairs when you’re ready to commit.”

Then Kellar was alone in the basement, where she curled in on herself and dropped to her knees. 

“Fuck,” her jaw clenched, “ _fuck_.”

She stayed that way for what must’ve been at least a couple of minutes. Her stomach-wrenching and heaving inside of her and the rest of her stubbornly refusing to let anything come out.

Her hand groped blindly for the edge of the counter. 

Up. She had to get up. Fallon would notice she was taking a million years to pick out something, and then she’d really be in the shits.

Kellar forced herself upwards, unwilling to let her face hover too close to the glass. She felt herself sway on her feet slightly, and she pinched her eyes shut to steady herself.

“Oh, dear, are you alright?”

“Yeah, I’m just –“

Then something solid cracked against her head.

Kellar was unconscious before she could even realize anything was wrong. 

-

Her head throbbed, and it only seemed to get worse with the angle her head hung at. This was how instinctively, Kellar knew she didn’t want to open her eyes. The longer she insisted on keeping her eyes pinched shut though, the more her body seemed to demand she open them. It was like falling asleep in reverse; suddenly she knew she was awake, and then slowly but surely, the fuzzy details trembled into focus. 

The throb at her skull was like a heartbeat of its own, with the emphasis on _beat_. There was a bruising tightness around Kellar’s chest and ribs that mirrored the same tightness at her wrists. When Kellar breathed out, her chest could only inflate so much before that tightness forced her to stop drawing breath. In her mind, she imagined a giant, clenched fist around her, until her head throbbed again, and shattered the image into a million achy pieces.

Kellar tasted something foul and gauzy in her mouth, and when she finally cracked her eyes open, darkness still sat firmly around her. She blinked, slowly, at first as if to wait for herself to adjust to a life of newfound blindness, and then, to confirm that it was cloth her eyelashes were brushing against. So, she was blindfolded too. None of this was good news.

She strained against her ties, and when a voice sounded, Kellar jolted in her seat.

“Awake, are we?”

That voice, laced in silk and cyanide.

A featherlight touch tickled at Kellar’s head and then the blindfold dropped off of her face. The chill of exposure glanced off Kellar along with cold, harsh light. Kellar winced, bleary, stinging wetness shattering Wolfman’s face into a million fractals, like diamond facets.

“Dark, alone,” Wolfman’s voice was dripping with condescension. “Whatever shall you do?”

Kellar blinked, and then mercifully, there really was only one Wolfman.

The woman reached a manicured hand up to Kellar’s mouth and gingerly removed the sock. Kellar’s mouth watered sourly when she thought of where it had been prior to being in her mouth.

“There sweetheart, is that better?” 

Kellar’s mouth felt like it was dusted with sand and she gave a dry cough.

“Oh,” Wolfman cooed, reaching for her hostage again. Kellar flinched when a manicured hand drew close to her temple; the sharp impact never came though – just a soft caress. Nick might’ve touched her in the very same way. “Need water?”

Kellar didn’t answer, and Wolfman didn’t wait for her to. Instead, Kellar just watched Wolfman wearily, as the other woman went to the grubby steel table in the center of the room, below a single, dangling light bulb. 

Wolfman bent over the table to reach the pitcher and glass, her clothing straining delectably over her curves as she did so.

It was just then that Kellar realized Wolfman wasn’t wearing the same dress she’d worn that night at the Third Rail. Today, she was wearing a grubby men’s button-down, tied and cinched near the waist for size. 

She still looked ridiculously good at it, Kellar thought begrudgingly, and those nails of hers were the same livid red – rubies nestled in the eyes of hellhounds. 

Wolfman returned with the glass of water and reached out as if to hand it to Kellar. When Kellar didn’t accept it, Wolfman laughed.

“I’ve forgotten myself – my bad.”

Wolfman reached out the crook of her finger and gently nudged it beneath Kellar’s chin. She eased it up the slightest bit, and gently lifted the cup to Kellar’s lips, tilting it just enough so that the woman could drink comfortably.

“There – that must help with the headache I imagine you have.”

At the mention of it, the tender patch at the pack of Kellar’s head seemed to flare up, like someone realizing their name was dropped in a conversation.

“Yeah, sorry about that – Trevor can get a little carried away. He means well though,” Wolfman laughed again, “for me, anyway. Other than that though, you shouldn’t find a scratch on you – or, at least one you didn’t already have. Not bad, huh?”

“Sure,” Kellar answered in a flat voice, shifting in her seat.

Wolfman watched Kellar, her lips turned upwards slightly into a coy smile. She took a sip from the glass herself.

“Sorry, we do have to keep you tied though, for what I hope are obvious reasons. You understand?”

When Kellar didn’t answer at first, Wolfman kept her eyes trained on the woman, and so Kellar bobbed her head into a little nod. The back of her head throbbed.

“Marvelous.”

There was a knock at the door behind Wolfman, and both women looked when it cracked open. Trevor’s massive, leathery, bulldog head poked in.

“Mistress,” he bowed slightly, “is there anything you need?”

Kellar started slightly, recognition seeping in through the raw edges of her battered skull. When she’d seen him beneath Wolfman at the Third Rail that night, Kellar had figured he was one of the big baddies they were chasing. When she’d found out Wolfman was the real villain, Kellar figured he was just a meat puppet for her to toy with. She realized she’d thought he wasn’t capable of speaking before now.

Wolfman thought for a moment. 

“A glass of a nice red would be _fantastic_ ,” she looked to Kellar. “Is wine alright with you too?”

Kellar opened her mouth, wanting to tell Wolfman to cut the crap already, but Wolfman was already looking back to her brutish lackey at the door.

“Fetch us a bottle of our best red – and two glasses please. Thank you, Trevor.”

Trevor gave an abrupt bow again, then the door shut, and it was just two.

Wolfman shot Kellar a wink.

“You didn’t think I’d leave you without a drink, did you? Hospitality and sisterhood, and whatever.”

The door cracked open once more, and Trevor stepped through, a bottle of wine and two wine glasses in his hands. He set them down on the table by Wolfman with delicacy Kellar wouldn’t have thought him capable of. 

“Thanks.”

“Mistress.”

Kellar looked around. There was only one door in and out of this place – and Trevor had just used it. Her head still hurt like a bitch, so surely she couldn’t have been here that long. That means that Nick would be here soon to get her back, right? She had been taken in the basement of Fallon’s – he’d know she’d failed to come out and would sound the alarm bells, and then –

The sound of liquid hitting glass jolted Kellar back to where she was with Wolfman. 

Maroon sloshed into the glass, spattering flecks of red onto Wolfman’s skin.

She set the bottle down and lifted her hand to her lips. When she pulled away, the spatter was gone.

“Mm. I love a nice, dry red.”

“Yeah,” Kellar cleared her throat. “Me too. Though, I like it a lot better when I’m not tied up.”

Wolfman tsked and brought both glasses over by Kellar.

“Darling, you know we can’t do that. Why must you keep asking me for things I cannot give you?”

“Why must you keep killing people and gutting them like livestock?” Kellar shot back.

Wolfman took a long sip from one of the glasses.

“Mm.”

Then she raised the other glass to Kellar, offering her a taste. 

Kellar took the pungent liquid in her mouth and swirled it around with her tongue. When Wolfman smiled that smile of hers, Kellar spat the wine directly at Wolfman’s face. Red dripped down like she wept blood, beads of it catching at the thick fringe of her eyelashes.

Wolfman screeched in rage, more banshee than beautiful woman. 

Both glasses crashed to the floor, shattering. A spray of glass and wine nipped at Kellar’s exposed ankles, stinging her with a biting rain.

The door cracked open and Trever appeared.

“Mistress?”

His eyes fell on the scene, and for all his hulking meat-locker mass, the man wasn’t as slow of movement or thought as Kellar had assumed. 

Full of surprises, Kellar thought bleakly, and certainly big enough to fit a great many deal of surprises.

He reached out towards Wolfman, who was still swiping wine from her face. 

“Let me-“

Wolfman slapped his hands away.

“Don’t _fucking_ touch me.”

Trevor faltered in his movements, his arms lingering uselessly in the space between him and Wolfman.

Then he turned to Kellar, and her stomach tied itself in knots that would put Wolfman’s handiwork to shame.

He stalked towards her, looking less and less like a person with each step. His eyes flashed with an animal fury, and Kellar was forced to watch his meaty hands as they swung with his stride. They looked like they could easily crush her skull, let alone snap her neck.

When he loomed right before Kellar, she could practically taste his rank breath as it mingled with the air. He raised one of those massive, club-like fists, and Kellar pinched her eyes shut. She was hyperaware of the tender patch at her head. If she took another blow like that, she was confident she’d throw up, or be concussed, or very possibly, both.

But the blow never came.

A few still moments passed, and Kellar peeked an eye open to see Wolfman, her shirt stained pink from the wine, her eyes still acidic, but her dainty hand pressed against Trevor’s chest.

“No,” the woman seemed to snarl, “you don’t fucking touch her either.”

Trevor looked like he wanted to protest, his eyes flicking from the woman touching him, to Kellar. Then, with a great shuddering breath, he slouched away, with a grumbled “M’stress,” before he disappeared out the door again.

Kellar only had time to look back to Wolfman, and consider feeling bad for her before the sharp sting bit at her cheek. Kellar was more shocked than hurt. Her skin felt raised. Bloated. 

If she were to be able to raise her hand to touch it, she was sure she’d feel a welt.

Kellar’s head throbbed, and then, she looked at Wolfman and couldn’t help it. She threw her head back, as far as her current sitting arrangement would allow her, and she let a loud, breathy laugh because Wolfman had never looked smaller than before then. Her bruised skull made contact with the wall behind her and she winced, before her laughter drowned the pain once more.

Wolfman glared at Kellar, and that only made her laugh harder. 

The angrier she tried to look, the less scary she seemed to be.

“You know?” Kellar struggled in between bouts of laughter. 

“I’m all for the ‘sisterhood’ and stuff, but –“ she laughed, sounding a little nuts, and that made her laugh even harder. Her ribs ached as she strained against her ties. “You fucking hit like a _girl_. And I don’t mean a _woman_ , I mean an actual, little –“

Wolfman turned on her heel and wordlessly went to the table at the center. Behind the bottle of wine, was a leather satchel Kellar hadn’t noticed before. 

Wolfman unfolded it, placed it on a rolling side table a few feet away, and wheeled it towards Kellar.

When Kellar caught the glint of what lay on the tray, her laughter evaporated instantly.

“I really _tried_ to be civil about this,” Wolfman said in a low voice. “I thought we were better than Rabbit and those brutes he calls colleagues. I thought we could settle this like ladies, but I guess I was wrong.”

Kellar swallowed. She might’ve laughed at Wolfman’s admonition of their failure to be ‘ladylike’. It was something her mother-in-law might’ve told her pre-war, and it seemed so silly and dumb after everything that had happened. However, another thing she’d picked up in the wasteland was that things that were silly and dumb, often seemed abundantly less so when you were dealing with those things while faced with a knife.

Kellar was faced with seven, each one more lethal-looking than the next, as they winked light back to her from their arrangement on the tray.

“Now,” Wolfman began again, slipping the first knife from its pocket.

From here, Kellar could see that the ‘kit’ Wolfman was brandishing was really just a set of old cooking knives, though she wasn’t about to pipe up with that information when Wolfman was holding what was largely used for _peeling_. “Now, you’ve found two of our bases of operations. How?”

A clammy sweat had started to gather at Kellar’s skin, and she didn’t dare blink or look away from the blade. Still though, the ballooning fear in her stomach was tempered by the fact that Kellar had gotten well-acquainted with rock bottoms by now. 

Her silver tongue tempered her cowardice into fearless bravado.

“I checked the phonebook, under listings for ‘crazy psychotic crimes by women with daddy issues’.”

Wolfman pressed her mouth into a thin line. It marred some of her natural beauty, and Kellar felt a little braver. Like she was still in the lion’s den, but that perhaps, the lion was declawed or missing a few teeth.

Wolfman walked into Kellar’s peripheral vision. Kellar followed her with her eyes as far as her neck could turn and then Wolfman essentially disappeared. A moment later, Kellar felt a soft touch sweep her hair from the back of her neck, over her shoulder. Then, something cool and sharp pressed right above the notch of vertebrae at the top of her spine.

Kellar felt herself start to tremble, and the movement gave the blade more bite into her skin.

“Y-You know,” she spat through chattering teeth, “you would’ve found that funnier if you knew what a phonebook was. Or maybe even a phone for that matter.”

Kellar gasped at the sting at the back of her neck, a heat that blossomed into terrible pain. Kellar worried vaguely at the wetness that seemed to slip from the source, sliding down beneath the material of her clothes, down her back. Kellar shook harder, tensed in a way she couldn’t control. 

The pain at her neck was wet and spongey, and even when some sort of release came, the pain was still livid and writhing inside her. 

Wolfman reached in front of her to hold a strange, thin, patch of something, dangling at her fingers. One side was light, and familiar, the other, a raw, angry red. A patch of her skin. 

Kellar strained against her bindings, wanting to clamp her hand over the exposed, raw wound, which burned as flyaway hairs clung to it, and the unfeeling light warmed it. Her chest struggled to heave with breath – deep breaths through the pain, a mantra that Kellar had kept from her days training on the court. There was no room to breathe here though, only pain.

“W-Was it – _ah, shit_ – the comment about the daddy issues?”

Kellar tasted copper, and her teeth felt like a tuning fork after being struck.

Wolfman returned to the tray and placed the small, peeling knife down. 

The blade still had a thin film of red smeared on it if one looked closely enough.

“If you keep pissing our time away, this is only going to get more painful for you.”

Kellar’s breathing felt shivery and weak, but it dragged against the inside of her chest like a wet blanket.

“’Pissing’ isn’t a _ladylike_ word.”

Wolfman went back to the tray, her fingers daintily walking down the row of knives. She settled on one in the middle – which Kellar guessed held the ‘medium scary’ ones.

The knife she pulled out looked less like a knife and more like a skewer with two prongs. Kellar vaguely recognized this from carving the turkey at Thanksgiving. She had probably been on the other end of this more than Wolfman had.

“So did I hit the mark with ‘daddy issues’? I just figured because, well, you’ve seen Trevor.”

Wolfman turned towards Kellar, brandishing the carving fork.

She raised it up, her gaze flitting down Kellar’s body. 

“But have you like, _seen_ him?”

Wolfman lowered the fork so that the two prongs tapped beneath Kellar’s chin, raising it. Kellar lifted her chin, meeting Wolfman’s eyes defiantly.

She swallowed and felt the sharp end press against her throat. 

It trailed down, leaving a vague burn at her skin as it dragged down to her jugular.

“What did the informant tell you?”

“Nothing that’s any of your business.”

Kellar pinched her eyes shut, feeling the sharp edges prod into her throat. She felt her skin strain against the pressure, and in her mind, the images of her skin popping, like a balloon, and leaking out a sad trickle of blood, played again and again.

Then suddenly, there was relief. Kellar opened her eyes and watched Wolfman turn back to the tray.

“What do you hope to accomplish with all of this talking? I’m keeping you alive only so long as you’re useful. When your use has ‘expired’, I’m going to kill you.”

“You will?” Kellar breathed, watching Wolfman resheath the carving fork. “Or Trevor?”

Wolfman’s fingers walked down a few more knife slots. The sheaths got bigger and bigger.

Her fingers hovered above the largest one.

“Why do you insist on protecting that metal man of yours? You could be so much better off without him.” 

Wolfman unsheathed what was unmistakably a meat cleaver. Unlike the other blades, this one still had russet stains dulling the metal when Wolfman pulled it out. “For example, if you hadn’t gotten yourself tangled up in his…work, you would not be here with me right now.”

“Aw, and I thought we were having fun. You know, like a girl’s night.”

Wolfman chuckled at this.

“Then let’s talk ‘boys’ – yours isn’t coming for you. You’re alone, and you’ll die that way.” Wolfman turned the knife around in her fingers. Only a little light glanced off of the dull blade. “Oh well. Men; can’t live with them, might as well turn those juicy bits to profit.”

Kellar’s gut twisted as if preparing for Wolfman to run her through. 

In her mind, she’d dissected her own potential stabbing in four different ways, as Wolfman stepped towards her.

-

After five minutes of Kellar being gone, Nick had told himself he was overreacting. After twenty minutes, he started to plan out exactly how he’d snap at her for taking so long once he saw her again. After almost an hour, he started to seriously doubt if that’d happen again. He’d all but dragged Hancock from his stool at the noodle stand, getting him up to speed on their way back to the Agency. No sooner had they burst through the door; Nick got Ellie abreast as well.

Now, Ellie and Hancock watched Nick as he paced the confined space, his secretary poised expertly at her typewriter. The report she’d been tapping away at when they’d come in sat sad and forgotten at the register, like a flag of surrender.

“So, you know she went to Fallon’s and didn’t come out. Why don’t you just go in and ask?” Ellie mused. “They don’t know, you know, right?”

“But,” Hancock piped up from his perch on Nick’s desk. “If Kellar didn’t come out, doesn’t _that_ mean, they know, that we know? And that they knew, she knew?”

Nick had ceased pacing. Now his hands rubbed tersely at his jaw.

“So we go in then – guns blazing, DC Guard at our back.”

“If Fallon’s in on it, then anyone else could be too. We have no way of knowing.” Nick sighed and pressed the fingers of his ruined hand to his eyes as if the answers were encrypted in his fingerprints. “No – no more outsiders, we have to handle this ourselves.”

“I’d bet those upper stands bastards are all in on it,” Hancock grumbled. “But we still go in guns blazing?”

Nobody disputed this.

Nick turned to Ellie; his mouth turned into a solemn grimace.

“Do you have any desire to get back out into the field?”

Ellie’s hand was already procuring something wrapped in a dainty kerchief from her desk drawer. She set it on the surface and delicately unwrapped it, fold by fold. A revolver was nested into the flower-printed fabric. 

It looked strange in Ellie’s fingers. 

She checked the chamber, every one carrying a bullet. She snapped it back into place and gave it a spin.

“Oh, I suppose if it’s for Kellar, I ought to.”

They were out the door in the next heartbeat. The back streets of Diamond City’s lower stands were drenched in shadows, despite how almost obnoxiously blue the sky was. On the other side of the walk, in the city’s center, voices could be heard – laughing, squealing, vendors pitching their wares. 

It was strange to think life could continue on as normal, whether or not Kellar was there to see it through or not.

“So, we’re really in it now, huh? Showing up at Fallon’s with guns,” Hancock shoved his hands into his pocket. They looked slack, Hancock suddenly looking engulfed by his fancy outfit. Nick wondered if he’d run out of jet. 

“Yeah, now that we’re actually about to do it, it seems less feasible.” 

It wasn’t ideal, but Nick wasn’t sure how else they’d go about it.

“You know, I grew up here,” Hancock mused.

“So, what’s your point?”

“Point is, I know all the ins and outs of this town. I spent the first part of my life running around, trying to skate by you through them. I seem to recall that most of Diamond City’s main spots are connected underground.”

“You think you can get us into Fallon’s basement a better way?”

Hancock let out a short chuckle.

“I’m saying that if Diamond City businesses are in on it, I’ll bet an underground tunnel system would prove very useful to _Les Chacals_.”

Nick mulled this over for a few moments. A tunnel, huh? Sounded like an ideal place to get ambushed – but so did barging in on one of Diamond City’s oldest and most reputable businesses demanding to see illicit goods. 

Especially if an unknowable portion of the town had been flipped.

“C’mon Nicky, bet on me for once. Killer’s life might depend on it.”

This flared a nerve in Nick, and he shot the ghoul a glare.

“What do you think, El? Should we trust the tunnels?”

Ellie wasn’t listening though, her head was turned, cocked in a strange way. It reminded Nick of the way dogs perked their heads up when they caught a pitch humans couldn’t hear.

“Ellie? What is it?”

“ _Sshh_ ,” her brow furrowed as if she were concentrating hard on something. She raised a finger up to the two men, demanding their compliance. Her irises seemed to tick to the left – she was tracking something.

Nick froze. Was it possible someone had caught on already?

“Oh, _shit_ ,” Hancock groaned.

“ _Get down!_ ”

Ellie dropped to the ground as a gunshot sounded, one hand grabbing a lapel on Nick’s jacket and yanking him down with her. Hancock hit the deck with a tense, albeit unsurprised glower.

“Where in God’s name is that coming from?”

Ellie’s eyes flitted from side to side. They could still hear voices on the other side of the walk, though they’d sharpened to screams. The scatter of hurried footsteps could be heard, along with the slam of doors.

“Upper stands. Caught a glimpse of a ghoul in a pinstriped suit – it felt a little too Goodneighbor to be normal for a day like today.” Ellie nodded to Hancock, “No offense.”

“You just saved my life, none taken Sister.”

Nick felt a nudge down by his hip, and when he glimpsed down he saw that Ellie had unholstered her gun.

“Ellie-“

She was already on her feet and sprinting down the gnarled street. 

At the last building before the turn off into the city’s center, she pressed herself flat against the wall, occasionally peeking around the corner upwards. When Nick slunk forward a few feet, he could look up between the slates of tin rooftops to see where a section of the upper stands catwalk was.

Christ, this city was a fishbowl.

Whatever served as Nick’s heart jolted in his chest as a man in a white and pink pinstriped suit and a gondolier hat went to the edge and peered over the railing. Ellie’s face was peeking around the corner, watching him. Her gun was clutched at her chest. Rabbit aimed his gun over the railing, and as the gunshot went off, Ellie retreated behind the safety of the corner once more. 

There was no more screaming. Nick couldn’t hear anything.

“Where the hell is the DC Guard?” Nick hissed, still keeping a wary eye on Ellie.

“Where do you _think_? Probably hiding inside like everyone else with their dicks in their hands.”

Another gunshot echoed off the walls of Diamond City, but Ellie hadn’t bothered to look yet. Her thumb clicked the chamber on her gun. Nick knew her well enough to know that she was taking a deep breath. Then there was thunder in her movements, like the fury of God was in her. She looked around the corner, raising her gun, and took a shot. Nick could hear the sound of metal denting. Rabbit was still standing.

Ellie retreated behind the corner. There was that beat and then Ellie was reaching around to aim again. 

This time, the gunshot sounded and Rabbit groaned, collapsing to one knee. Red blossomed at the knee of his limp leg. 

Ellie’s eyes were fierce as they watched Rabbit grope the floor of the catwalk for his gun, which he’d dropped upon being hit.

“You guys go ahead – I’ll cover you.”

Nick watched Ellie with storm clouds in his eyes, and then he nudged Hancock at his side, and the two of them were sprinting further into the back, lower stands, where Diamond City’s sorry excuse for farmland was.

Hancock skidded to a stop, his boots sinking into the loose soil.

“Christ, it’s been a while – but it should be around here somewhere.”

Hancock dropped to his knees and started churning dirt around with his hands. 

“It’s a giant metal door – like a cellar, or something.”

Another gunshot echoed around them. The rumble bounced off the great green walls and then ricocheted off each other, making it impossible to see exactly where the shot had come from – like a maze of mirrors except this time it was sound that was deflected. 

Everywhere Nick looked and breathed – it was all the same gunshot. He could even feel it rattle around inside him like a wandering heartbeat.

“Hey, Nick – _get down here and help me_.”

Hancock’s voice was so graveled, Nick thought it might tear through the soft, leathery column of his throat. Nick dropped to his knees too and the pair spread out, churning up dirt, and jumping in their skin whenever another gunshot sounded. 

“ _Damn it_ ,” Nick shot his arm out in frustration – more a gesture of anger than one of use, but as fate would have it, a dull _clang_ sounded as Nick’s bad hand hit something hard in the dirt.

“I found something!”

Hancock went to where Nick was, and the two men hurried in dusting off the hardness he’d stumbled upon. Soon, a dusty square emerged in the soil, then, a dirt crusted handle.

“Yes! I _knew_ there was a reason I kept you around.”

Both of them laughed at this, hearty and giddy with triumph. Then standing, Nick dusted himself off before they both anchored themselves on either side of the door, and gave their respective handles a sharp tug.

The dirt in the hinges provided some resistance, but mercifully, the cellar door was unlocked. A shower of soil rained down into the gaping mouth inside – steep concrete stairs let into the blackness below. Hancock let out a low whistle. Of course, nothing could ever be easy.

“It’d be nice if Killer were here with that fancy Pipboy of hers.”

“If Kellar were here, we wouldn’t need to go down there,” Nick pointed out.

“Yeah.”

Hancock beat his hands against his frock, looking like he was sweating grime. Then he stepped to the side, and bowed deeply to Nick, sweeping one arm towards the tunnel leading down.

“Your girl’s not going to rescue herself. Or, well, maybe she will, but then – I’d pay to see that, so; after you!”

Nick stepped in, Hancock following close behind. He briefly considered closing the doors behind them, but the dankness of the tunnels and suffocating blackness warned against it. 

“Alright then, lead the way.”

Hancock reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a lighter. 

Flicking it on, he turned to Nick.

“You smoke like a chimney, don’t you have a lighter on ya?”

Nick patted his empty pockets. 

“Must’ve fallen out during the shootout.”

“Damn.” Hancock used another leather hand to cup around the small bubble of light. “This will have to do then.”

They started walking, the non-descript, concrete walls at times feeling so monotonous that their footsteps seemed to bleed into it, and Nick thought they might just keep walking in the dark forever. Eventually, the narrow passageway opened up into a chamber that branched into an array of six corridors. They came from the rightmost of three on their side of the chamber, with three others resting opposite.

“If I remember correctly, this is right beneath the center of Diamond City, so Fallon’s should be…” Hancock’s dark eyes studied the chamber, mentally marking the various landmarks in Diamond City. “This way.” 

Hancock pointed to the corridor to their right.

They turned and started down the path. The air seemed to grow heavier, and Nick could practically feel it condensing into droplets inside of him.

“So where else do these tunnels lead?”

“Oh, here and there. Chem-i-Care, Homeplate, stuff like that. I only ever used the backfield one, and the uh, chem one. There’s one that’s supposed to lead around to where the mayor’s office is, but it’s been sealed off.”

“How do you know this one leads to Fallon’s then?”

Hancock cleared his throat and kept his eyes straight ahead.

“Consider it a well-educated guess.”

Nick stopped.

“A _guess_? We’re betting Kellar’s life on a guess?”

The area that would’ve been Hancock’s brow, raised.

“Do you have a better idea?”

Nick didn’t, but that didn’t stop him from spending a few moments trying to formulate one.

He opened his mouth and shut it several times. 

“Right, that’s what I thought. Now c’mon, if I’m right, the door to Fallon’s basement should be just ahead.”

The bone-colored concrete melted into the shadows as soon as Hancock tugged the light source further away from it. Inches in front of them, where the most pitted of this darkness seemed to swim in front of their eyes, Hancock was able to raise a hand up, and splay his fingers against the obsidian blackness. When he brought his lighter closer to it, Nick could see that the abyss reflected back; it was a door, almost resembling that of a safe, and made of cold, unfeeling iron.

“Alright, we ready in case things get hairy right off the bat?”

Nick’s hand was already at his hip, over his gun.

“Things already are. Let’s just bring Kellar home.”

Hancock flicked his lighter shut; they were completely blind. Nick could hear the rasp of flesh dragging against metal. Could hear the inward groan of the metal as Hancock coaxed movement into the wheel.

After a few persistent tugs, Hancock got it moving, and the door opened with a loud creak. Light flooded the passageway as Hancock and Nick stepped through.

“Are you sure this is Fallon’s?” Nick asked, looking around.

It was brighter down here than Nick remembered Fallon’s being. 

Display cases lined the walls, but that was all that seemed to be in there. There wasn’t even a counter or anyone to man it. Nick went to the closest display case, the one immediately to the right of where he and Hancock had entered the basement. 

“Where do you even find cases like these out here?”

Hancock ran a ringer along the gold trim. Nick peered inside at the rectangles of varying shades of brown and beige. Beneath each one, nestled against the red, felt lining, were little placards.

Nick studied the strange scrawlings on them; _150,000c Halle Townsend 5_

The name lingered with Nick. He felt he should know it, though he did not. This name occurred under the middle-sized square, which upon closer inspection, was found to be a sort of pouch, based off the fold at the bottom edge, and the seam and clasp at the opposite edge. It reminded Nick a bit of calfskin – looking soft to the touch, with a slight coat of peach fuzz. It was paler though, and while he couldn’t discern why, a shadow passed over his mood.

The other pouches had similar placards beneath them; _125,000c Luise Rudemo 1_

_175,000 c Siegfried Stanley 12_

The last numbers listed on the placards bothered Nick. The first seemed to be a price – he’d seen it often enough at wasteland shops, the middle was obviously a name, but the last…

Nick wandered over to another display case, where long strips were featured with their own placards. Same format. Nick’s eyes drifted across the display, and then he stiffened.

Nick raised his hands to press at the glass from above, and he leaned in closer as if trying to ensure he was seeing what he thought he was seeing.

_45,000 c Stella Norman 19_

Stella Norman had been nineteen when she’d gone missing about a year ago – and her remains had never been found.

Nick stumbled backward, the jolt of his hand at the case almost strong enough to tip it back against the wall.

“Nick? What the hell?”

Hancock came over, curious as to what had caused the seasoned detective to startle. Hancock peered into the case, and let out a low whistle.

“Smoothskin leather, huh? Nasty business.”

“The last number on the placards is their _age_.”

Hancock looked up at Nick.

“No kiddin’? There was a number ‘one’ on one of the placards.”

Nick grimaced.

“Yeah, I know.”

They stood in silence for a few moments, until a dull thud from upstairs snapped them back into motion. 

“Let’s just find where they’re keeping Kellar and get the hell out of here. We can figure out the rest later.”

“Couldn’t agree more Nicky,”

The two men fanned out across the room, looking for anything out of place – drag marks, another trapdoor. A note from their mystery informant?

They searched the sides of the cases, trying not to look too closely at what was inside. When they found nothing, they were forced to open the cases and check under the merchandise. 

Nick picked up a belt with his bad hand, his needle-like fingers holding the product like tweezers.

He didn’t want to just throw them on the ground, but they didn’t have the time to fumble around wondering where to neatly fold and place the merchandise either. With the glass lid of the case propped open, Nick settled for draping them over the side. 

He repeated this with each item in the box until he was looking at a hollowed out inside.

“Hancock,” Nick called, “did you find anything on your side?”

“Nothin’.”

Nick peered at the box. They had turned the basement upside down and found nothing. Did this count as rock bottom? It certainly felt like it. Unless…

“Hancock, do you still have that switchblade of yours?”

“Never leave home without it. Why?”

“Bring it here.”

Hancock came over, fishing his blade from the pocket of his trousers. He handed it to Nick, who popped the blade out, and then used it to tear a long gash into the felt bottom.

Upon parting the tattered, red lips there was just more beaten wood beneath.

They tried the other cases too – and still, there was nothing except a few splintered remnants of maybe another wooden bottom, that had since been replaced.

“Damn it,” Nick handed Hancock his knife back and swept his hand along the floor of the case. He felt loose, splintered wooden pieces catch in his hand. They shifted but didn’t move as much as Nick thought they should’ve. Half in frustration and half in desperation he grabbed them, wrenching them out from behind the red felt.

Dangling from one, was some sort of wire, curled like a monkey’s tail. 

Nick wouldn’t have even noticed it though if it hadn’t been for the release of a lock mechanism from some far corner of the room.

The basement tapered off into a shallow hallway that led to nowhere, and where before, only shadows swirled, a strip of light leaked more clinical lighting to cut through the slate of darkness.

“Over there!”

The door looked like another section of wall – there wasn’t even a discernable seam between where the wall ended and the door began. The lock mechanism itself must’ve been rather delicate – dictated only by magnets, and the placement of a stray wire, rather than the heavy, vault-like bars the door leading from the tunnels had.

Nick slotted his fingers into the gap between the wall and door and yanked it open. For once, he already knew exactly how he wanted to play this. In the next second his gun was out and leveled at the back of Wolfman’s head. From before her, Kellar slouched in her chair, only held upright by her bindings. 

The ends of her hair were matted with blood and sweat, and a mingling of rust and bright red spotted her shirt. 

Beside her and Wolfman, was a tray of instruments. Nick didn’t have to wonder at what they were used for. 

“Long time, no see Wolfman. I almost didn’t recognize you without your friends.”

Wolfman turned, seemingly undisturbed.

“I grew tired of mine, so I decided to pay a visit to some of yours,” her lips were curled into a smile.

“Then get nice and cozy, because we already dealt with Rabbit, and if you call for anyone else, I’ll shoot you before you even finish getting two words out.”

Wolfman held up two perfect hands in a gesture of surrender.

“Relax Valentine, I know when I’m outnumbered. I know when I’ve lost. Apparently, _you_ don’t though.”

Hancock narrowed his eyes.

“We haven’t lost though. We’re the ones holding the guns if you can’t tell.”

Wolfman let out a chiming laugh.

“If that’s all you think winning is, then you’ve been playing this game all wrong. If you think putting a bullet through my brain will fix everything, then you don’t know a single, damned _thing_.” Her eyes flashed dangerously, like a predator’s at night. “ _Les Chacals_ has always been bigger than just one woman, and this operation, is a lot bigger than _Les Chacals_ now. We may be a pack of jackals, but Diamond City? This cesspool is a nest of snakes.”

“Let’s get her,” Nick said, his face stone.

“With pleasure.” 

Nick kept his gun trained on Wolfman as Hancock came around to grab her, cinching her arms behind her back.

“ _Ooh_ ,” Wolfman sighed, “I do love a man with a strong touch.” 

“Yeah? And how do you feel about rooms with bars for walls and a nice big padlock on the door?”

Nick tossed Hancock his cuffs from his pocket and didn’t holster his gun again until he heard them click around her wrists. Then Nick dropped to his knees in front of Kellar, and his hands were at her face.

“Hey.”

Kellar continued to droop.

“ _Hey!_ Kellar – we’re here,” Nick raised his hand to her cheek and gave a light tap.

At this Kellar’s eyes fluttered and her head lolled upwards.

“Nick? Is that…you?” Her words were slurred like they were encased in concrete and too heavy to lift.

Nick felt a rush of relief so strong, he could’ve sworn it came from a live, beating heart in his chest.

“Yeah, doll, it’s us – we’re going to get you out of here now.”

“It’s you…for real?”

“Yeah,” he reached over to squeeze her clammy hand before he started at her bindings.

As the ropes loosened, Kellar fell forward, and Nick caught her with his chest. Her forehead pressed into his shoulder and Nick was careful to put her arms around his neck.

“Hold on,” he murmured and felt her grip on him tighten with the subtlety of breath.

When they emerged from Fallon’s, Ellie was watching as two DC Guard members walked Fallon from her shop, her hands handcuffed in front of her. 

Ellie caught Nick’s eye and went to meet them.

“Is she alright?” Ellie looked to Kellar, raising her hand as if to pat her on the back before catching herself, and deciding against it.

“We’re about to take her to Dr. Sun to make sure. She was conscious downstairs, but…” he didn’t need to say the rest; _she’s been through hell_.

Ellie caught the spotting at her clothes, and nodded, her mouth pressed into a firm line. From behind Nick, came Hancock, who walked with almost a strut as he escorted Wolfman to where two other DC Guards were waiting.

“Watch out,” Hancock said to the guard members, “precious cargo here. In fact, don’t you think that maybe the mayor should be here? I dunno, for some _adult supervision_?”

The two men exchanged a look from behind their caged masks. 

“The mayor is…indisposed at the moment.”

“Indi-“ Hancock put his hands at his hips, and scoffed, “then tell him to pull his pants up, tuck it in, and get out here – shit is getting _real_.”

The taller of the two men crossed his arms and matched Hancock’s challenging stare. The other dropped his eyes to his feet, his fingers fidgeting in front of him.

He mumbled something imperceptible. 

“What’s that?”

“I said, ‘the mayor left’.”

“What do you mean he _left_?”

Nick and Ellie left Hancock to duke it out with the two guardsmen.

“Great,” Nick said to her, in a low voice, “glad to know whose side _he_ was on.”

At the Mega surgery center, Dr. Sun for once was sapped of his usual dry remarks. Instead, he hurried Nick and Kellar down into the basement, which had since been purged of Doc Crocker’s crimes.

“It’s been cleaned – several times,” Dr. Sun reassured though no one had asked, “you can set her down on the bed.”

Nick obliged. As he started to step back to give the doctor room, he was caught by Kellar’s hand in his. 

Her eyes were still shut, her face turned slightly away, but her hand was most definitely clutching on to him. 

Nick decided not to go too far after all.

After an hour of scouring Kellar for injuries, they made it out with bandages and stitches for the cuts she sustained, a splint for a broken finger, and some sleeping pills for everything else.

Dr. Sun turned to Nick as Kellar shrugged into the coat Ellie had swung by to bring her.

“Detective Valentine, a word?”

The two men stepped off to the side, heads bowed to protect the fragility of their lowered voices.

“Does Kellar have…a place to go tonight?”

“What do you mean?”

Dr. Sun’s gaze flicked over to where Kellar was leaned up against the door, waiting. Her head fell back and hit the aluminum wall with a dull thud, her eyes closed. She didn’t look like she’d care what they said if they hadn’t bothered to get privacy.

“I mean – is she going to be…alone? I just – it’s not my place, but as a health care practitioner, I don’t feel it to be in her best interests to be without some…support system tonight.”

“I was thinking she’d stay with me. I’ve got a bed at the Agency, and it’s not like I need it or anything – but, why do you bring it up?”

Dr. Sun’s brow wrinkled slightly and Nick felt dread bubble inside of him. For the mild-mannered doctor, this was the most distressed most ever saw him.

“There’s nothing explicitly wrong, per se. Her injuries are relatively mild. I think given how long she was…held captive, it’s a miracle she didn’t make it out with worse, or –“ Dr. Sun cut himself off before he could say what he and Nick were both thinking; _or that she didn’t make it out at all._

“She’s been through a lot, and I think that trauma, the wounds we can’t see, might take longer to heal than a broken finger.”

Nick looked at Kellar. She hadn’t moved from her pose; her entire body sagged against the wall.

“You will keep an eye on her, won’t you?”

“Of course,” Nick replied, though he was a little annoyed at having even been asked.

Kellar, though quite weak, was able to sit up and hobble home with Nick’s guiding grip on her elbow. She didn’t seem to question why he was taking her to the Agency instead of the Homeplate, but all the same, as soon as they got inside, he helped her out of her coat.

“I thought maybe you should stay here tonight so that when Wolfman is ready to be interrogated, we could save you the hassle of waiting for me to tell you.”

“Okay.” 

Kellar blinked at him. The lie was thin like cobwebs, but she didn’t have the energy to argue. 

What was the point if she was staying here anyway? Nick watched her. She was standing on her own, but somehow still sagging. Like her frame could just barely hold up the tedium of everything else.

“Why don’t I show you to the bed? You can knock out if you want.”

“Okay.”

Kellar plodded up the stairs, her feet dragging, her hands trailing up the railing. Nick followed closely behind, his eyes trained intently on her back.

Upstairs, she sat on the bed, which was meticulously made. Who knew when the last time someone had slept in it had been? Nick chuckled as if reading her mind.

“You’ll be the first person to sleep in that bed,” 

Kellar looked down at the way the duvet crinkled beneath her fingers, as Nick’s laugh met silence. He placed a hand on her shoulder.

“Well,” he sighed, “I’ll leave you to get some rest. I’ll be just downstairs if you need anything.”

As he turned to leave, he was caught again by Kellar’s hand in his. 

He looked at her, not bothering to slip his hand away.

“Did you ever find…the informant?”

At the last word, Kellar looked up to meet Nick’s gaze, and for a moment, she sounded a bit like her old self.

“You mean the one who’d left the note? And the sign on the wall in Goodneighbor?”

Kellar nodded.

“No. They never came forward. Never sent anything else either, unless maybe they did and Wolfman and Rabbit got to it first.” Or the informant, but he felt that didn’t need saying.

“Why? Did you find anything?”

Kellar’s eyes seemed to empty again and she shook her head.

“Probably not – I don’t know. Wolfman asked me, and before that I…” she looked around the room, not looking for anything except to be somewhere else. 

“It’s alright, you don’t have to-“

“Do you remember the Normans?” she asked suddenly. “And the girl who went missing? Stella?”

Nick thought back to the glass cases in Fallon’s basement.

“I do,” he said. 

When Kellar spoke again, her voice shook.

“And you saw the basement.”

“I did.”

Neither of them spoke for a few moments. Kellar was still holding his hand. 

“She had a sister.”

“I remember.” 

“Do you know what happened to her?”

“Allena? She left Diamond City I think, but I don’t know where she went. Maybe to go live with some family where she –“

“Wasn’t in the fishbowl her sister was slaughtered in?”

Nick and Kellar looked at each other and Nick noticed her lower lip was trembling slightly.

“I was going to say ‘heal’.”

Kellar took a deep breath in which her shoulders sagged, and never came back up. 

“I hope she got out.”

“Me too.”

“Should we…tell the Normans? What we found? It’s not a body but…”

Nick ran a hand over his face.

“I suppose we should, though I think they already know.”

Kellar stiffened and the alarm on her face soothed Nick’s fried nerves. 

Anything was better than that blank, thousand-yard stare. He could see something in her eyes; the woman holding his hand was no longer a stranger.

“About the skin market?”

“No – but a year gone? They knew the end result couldn’t be anything good. The only thing we can give them now is closure.”

Closure. Kellar was starving for a bit of that herself. She eased herself down into the pillows.

Neither of them had much left to say after that but when Nick got up to leave, Kellar still didn’t let go. 

Nick stopped in his tracks, unsure of what she was asking. 

She looked anywhere but him, and blinked as if she had something in her eyes.

“Could you…stay?”

Nick paused. Looking down at her on the bed there, she looked so fragile. His face visibly softened.

“Sure.”

He perched at the edge of the bed a little awkwardly until Kellar scooted herself further away. Now there was enough room for Nick to lay down too. She had shut her eyes, though Nick could tell from the focus in her expression that she was still awake. Was this an invitation to lay beside her?

His mind seemed to go in circles for a few minutes, debating the moral quandaries of laying down with someone who may not want him to lay down with them, vs. leaving Kellar to struggle alone. In her place, he’d want her to stay close, he finally decided.

He kicked off his shoes, let go of her hand, and laid down, his arm now bent beneath his head for support. His other hand rested over his waist. Kellar had opened her eyes and was watching him now. 

“Don’t let me wake you, doll. You can sleep; I’ll be here as long as you need me.”

She sighed, her eyes lowering.

“On days like today, it feels like I’ll always need you.”

The hand on Nick’s waist twitched as if he were deliberating on something. Then he slowly reached over, and grabbed her hand again. He smiled. He wasn’t sure exactly about what, seeing as he figured it was a sixty-forty chance a mob showed up outside of the agency to hunt them down, like animals. Still though, this, here with her, he couldn’t bring himself to care much about anything else.

Kellar smiled a little too.

They stayed like this for a little while, until she worked up the nerve to inch closer to him. Nick stiffened but didn’t release her. Soon, Kellar was close enough to hear the faint thrumming in his chest. If she were to doze off right then and there, she probably would’ve fallen into a soft headbutt against his chest.

She was so close that their handhold had started to get uncomfortable, what with the awkward contortion of their wrists to accommodate it. 

Nick hesitated, and then slipped his hand from hers, and reached over to curl his arm around her form. He could feel her breath suspend in her body, like an invisible hand closed over a butterfly, careful not to crush it, but unwilling to let go.

In return, his arm was rigid around her. It was palpable, the uncertainty in the gesture.

Kellar pinched her eyes shut and cleared her throat.

“Are you normally this nervous with women in bed?”

He pulled back enough to glare at her and then the weight of his arm on her solidified into a proper embrace.

“For your information, I was just trying to be a _gentleman_.”

Kellar didn’t say anything, just let him corral her closer to him, allowing herself be lulled by the hum in his chest, and the softness of his shirt. 

Throughout the night she was still until she wasn’t. Nick marveled at how animated she was, even in sleep. The quiet in her expression could be shattered by the troubled furrow of her brow or the downwards twitch of her mouth. She’d roll in his grasp, and he would freeze, at first afraid he’d done something to wake her. But then she’d slouch into him, her arm circling his waist, her head angled up only to breathe. His chest tightened under the weight of her grip and something else.

Her lips parted slightly. When they weren’t pulled into a grin or making a sharp remark, they looked sort of delicate, like flower petals, or seashells.

A few minutes later, she let out a little snore, and Nick chuckled mutely, careful not to jostle her awake. 

When she woke up the next day, Nick was still there. She didn’t have the option of peeking her eyes open and going back to sleep; he’d caught her immediately.

“Morning. You feel any better?”

Kellar turned, her grogginess melting into a soft shyness at having woken up as she’d fallen asleep – in Nick’s arms.

“Yeah, I’m alright,” she ran a hand over her face and kept it there just to spare herself some of the embarrassment of looking Nick in the eyes. 

“Sorry about that.”

His arm was still around her, and as Kellar’s heart rate began to accelerate, it only seemed to grow heavier.

“You have nothing to apologize for. If I could sleep at all, I would’ve slept like the dead.”

Kellar’s face burned at this, and then it was up and at ‘em.

Though the bad guys had been arrested the day before, Nick and Kellar decided to go to the DC Jail to see if anyone had managed a proper confession out of Wolfman. The walk was short, though Kellar couldn’t stop herself from jumping slightly every time they rounded a corner and saw a familiar face. 

“Easy doll,” Nick would say, “no one will try anything in broad daylight.”

Kellar grimaced.

“How sure of that are we?”

Nick didn’t answer, just held his good hand up at the small of her back, guiding and reassuring all at once.

In the jail, most of the morning shift Guard were still in the locker room, getting ready to relieve the night shift. The man at his desk looked up through the doorway of his office as Kellar and Nick passed by and then went back to whatever it was he was doing.

Nick and Kellar went up to the holding cell. Wolfman was laying inside, body slumped against the bars, her head lolled away from them, a dark curtain of hair shielding her face from their view. She looked bedraggled here – like an entirely different woman without her glamor. 

“Rise and shine,” Nick called out.

Wolfman didn’t move.

Kellar’s temper flared in her, so quick she didn’t even have time to react, just watched as her foot shot out to kick against the bars. It made a thick, muffled _clang_.

“Hey!” Kellar said and kicked once more. “Get up.”

Wolfman still didn’t move. 

“What the hell?”

Kellar got ready to kick the cell again, visibly shaking. 

“Wait – “ Nick reached out, steadying his partner. “Hey!” he called to the room they’d passed. “Get out here, I think something’s wrong!”

The DC Guard member shambled out of the room, hands on his hips. 

“What’s going on out here?”

Nick jabbed his thumb in the direction of Wolfman, laying in her cell.

“Weren’t you dopes supposed to be watching her?”

The man crossed his arms, his face scoring a deep look of offense.

“And what if we were? What? Whaddya tryin’ to say?”

“She’s not _moving_!”

“Ah shit.”

The man went to the cell door and took the ring of keys from his hip. 

They jangled as he took his sweet time trying one. When that failed, he slipped it further down the ring and tried the next one. When that failed, he did the same for the next one. 

And the next one. And the next one.

“Jesus Christ man, isn’t this the key you use the most?”

The Guardsman shot a glower in Nick’s direction but continued his bumbling pace. After what felt like an eternity, he finally found the correct key, and when he slotted it into the lock, something clicked and the door opened with ease.

The Guardsman stepped aside as Nick and Kellar nearly barreled him over in their haste to get in. Kellar approached Wolfman carefully as if she were sneaking up on a large, feral predator. One hand cautiously reached out to gently shake Wolfman’s shoulder. 

Kellar let out a yelp of surprise as Wolfman toppled over onto the concrete floor. The head lolled as the rest of her body settled. Something fell from her and hit the floor with a clatter, rolling to some corner of the cell. Her dark hair fanned across her face.

Kellar kept low and reached forward to gingerly push Wolfman’s hair back. 

Her eyes were open, and then both Nick and Kellar startled.

They were not the sultry eyes they remembered. They were terrible. Bugged out, like they’d swollen up and their skull could barely hold them any longer. What was supposed to be the whites of her eyes were red, with the veins that were supposed to be red, a sickly, toxic violet.

Those shapely lips of hers were blue and puffed out like a wasp had taken to them. Dried trails, some clear, some yellowish, thicker, almost chunkier, were dried in an eternal dribble from the corners of her mouth. Kellar had to stifle the urge to gag.

“She was poisoned.”

Nick went to the vial that had since rolled off and picked it up. 

Kerosene eyes inspected it, though Kellar couldn’t imagine what for; she doubted that it would’ve come with a label. 

A few of the small, oval, white pills remained inside, and something else – also white, but larger and not at all pill-shaped. Kellar wondered how many doses they’d bothered to fit inside if they’d only intended to smuggle it in for Wolfman. 

Nick popped the small, metal cap and lifted it to his nose to give a sniff. He shook the vial in his hands, rattling the pills inside before slipping a finger in and removing the non-pill.

Kellar had bet there wasn’t a label – but the piece of paper between Nick’s two fingers was certainly _something_.

He unfurled it, and if he’d had a brow, Kellar was sure it would have been marred into a deep furrow.

“Come take a look at this.”

Kellar went to stand by Nick and peered at the scrap of paper in his hands. It read;

_Ilisha,_

_Anything for you, moonbeam._

\- _P.W._

The careful red-string web in Kellar’s mind tangled violently, then with two new unknowns tossed in, like a house of cards, the balance was disrupted; whatever tenuous hold on whatever phantom lead they had, was fluttering away.

The rest of the guard was there in the next convenient handful of minutes, ushering them out, though luckily, no one noticed as Nick slipped both the vial and the note into his coat pocket. 

“A woman in your custody is dead and we’re detectives working a case,” Nick tried to reason with them.

“It’s nothing,” they returned with blank looks, “we saw nothing.”

Outside, it was a pleasant morning – cool without being cold. 

The sky was blue with barely a cloud in it. Everything that was intended to be seen, seemed to flaunt itself. 

Kellar was offended by the blue of the sky and the brightness of the sun. It was a burlesque dancer in brights for a show she didn’t care to see. The contentedness that could be overheard in pleasantries as the city started waking up was almost whoreish to her.

When she swallowed, her throat felt raw.

“Nick,” she turned to him. “Ilisha…this ‘P.W.’ – I don’t even know where to look anymore. I don’t know what we’re looking for. She was right this was so much bigger than just she and Rabbit. This was –“

She hadn’t even realized her voice had risen until Nick put a hand at her elbow, reminding her of where they were. At his touch she jerked her arm away, eyes suddenly wide and wild. 

Her body was pulled taut like she was a marionette doll. How much simpler things would be if she weren’t the one making all of these decisions.

“Not here,” he said in a low voice. 

He wasn’t looking at her, his eyes were further away, giving the surrounding area a quick once-over.

There were a few of the DC Guard spotted around; the cages obscuring their faces. Kellar had always thought that this dress feature was a protective measure, but she started to wonder then what, or _who_ exactly it was protecting.

Every time Kellar caught someone’s eye by chance, she felt her fingers twitch towards her gun. Were they watching her? She wasn’t sure if she believed in anything ‘by chance’ anymore.

Before she and Nick rounded the shaded bend down the alley to where the Agency was, Kellar looked back. Businesses were open and the crowd was starting to pick up at the city’s center. 

As she watched the people mill about, she saw one – a fixture amongst the flow.

That red hair, those green eyes; Kellar froze and watched.

_Allena?_

This Allena was different from the younger Norman sister she remembered; more serious and somehow more empty. All the tears she could’ve ever shed had been for her sister. There was nothing left. 

Another throng of people passed, and when Kellar fought to make her out again, she had already vanished, as quietly and mysteriously as she had the year prior. 

Kellar was unfazed. 

“Kellar?” Nick asked, already starting down the walkway.

“Coming.”

She went to catch up with her partner and was still wishing Allena well when they stepped into the Agency, where Ellie was waiting.


End file.
